The Art of SQL Server FILESTREAM - Red Gate Software

Chapter 12: Planning, Configuration and Best PracticesDisabling the Last Access Time attributeEach file in an NTFS volume has an attribute named Last Access Time. By default,NTFS tries to keep this attribute accurate by updating it every time the file is accessed.It means that even a read operation will result in a disk write operation (to update theLast Access Time attribute). Disabling this attribute on the FILESTREAM volume willgive you considerable performance benefits if you deal with a large number of files thatare frequently read. When the Last Access Time update is disabled, this attribute willshow the same value as the File Creation Time.You can disable Last Access Time by running fsutil.exe on computers running onWindows Server 2003 and later. You might want to first check the current setting of thisconfiguration value. You can do it by running fsutil.exe in query mode (Listing 12-3).fsutil.exe behavior query disablelastaccessListing 12-3:Querying the Last Access Time setting.If Last Access Time is not disabled, you will see a message that readsdisablelastaccess is not currently set.If the system is configured to disable the update of Last Access Time, yourquery will return disablelastaccess = 1.If you see that your server is currently configured to update Last Access Time,you can disable it by running fsutil.exe with the set parameter (Listing 12-4).fsutil.exe behavior set disablelastaccess 1Listing 12-4:Disabling Last Access Time update.447