Found this from the unlikeliest source imaginable - Gateway - so take it with a grain of salt...
PCI IDE Prefetch Buffers are used to disable a set of prefetch buffers in the PCI IDE controller. Disabling the buffers may be required if you are using an operating system, such as Windows NT, that does not use the computer BIOS to access the hard disk and does not disable interrupts when completing a programmed I/O operation.
However, since setting this field to Disabled can harm computer performance, we recommend that you leave the default setting at Enabled.
During my search I did find that it's probably not a good idea in linux.
Give it a shot and run the ATTO. I believe it is enabled on my Abit KT7A-RAID (XP Pro), but the only thing I have on IDE are my DVD drive and CD Burner.
Prefetch, software or hardware, is akin to caching. Enabling prefetch means the hard drive, in this case, will attempt to anitipate what you'll need or most commonly use to speed up operation.
SCSI controllers have onboard memory for this very purpose. WindowsXP also has a prefetch folder which should be, like temporary internet files, be cleaned out every so often.
gtghm
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Does anyone have an idea?
Give it a shot and run the ATTO. I believe it is enabled on my Abit KT7A-RAID (XP Pro), but the only thing I have on IDE are my DVD drive and CD Burner.
SCSI controllers have onboard memory for this very purpose. WindowsXP also has a prefetch folder which should be, like temporary internet files, be cleaned out every so often.