 <p>If you are going to use PHP (*nix/Windows) then you are looking for the PHP <code>dio</code> (Direct I/O) extension: <a href="http://php.net/manual/en/book.dio.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://php.net/manual/en/book.dio.php</a></p> <p>From PHP manual:</p> <blockquote> <p>PHP supports the direct io functions as described in the Posix Standard (Section 6) for performing I/O functions at a lower level than the C-Language stream I/O functions (fopen(), fread(),..). The use of the DIO functions should be considered only when direct control of a device is needed. In all other cases, the standard filesystem functions are more than adequate.</p> </blockquote>