🚀 go-pugleaf

The Renaissance Man (ala...@netcom.com) wrote:
: r...@dmu.ac.uk (robert logan) wrote:
: ] Chris "Strunoph" Norman (cbno...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:
: ] : Doug Marien <sl...@landshark.micro.umn.edu> wrote:
: ] : >If you have enough memory, like 16meg or more, load RAMDRIVE.SYS
: ] : >in your CONFIG.SYS file with the options:
: ] : >device=c:\dos\ramdrive.sys 12288 512 1024
: ] : A far more intelligent option is to install a disk cache.  
: ] Hopefully Chris means a software cache. A hardware cache
: ] is a far less intelligent solution. With the money
: ] you spend on a disk cache you could buy more ram and
: ] configure as you like.

: Well, personally *I* kind of *LIKE* my hardware cache.  I have an EISA
: 32-bit caching IDE controller, and (a) it's blindingly fast, (b) I don't
: have to burn conventional memory on loading software caches, (c) cache
: conflicts are a thing of the past, and (d) I have one cache that works
: for both DOS and Linux.

Some points here.
If youve got a 4 Meg machine would you upgrade to
8 Megs or get a 4 Meg cache controller (c.c)?

With 8 Megs you can choose to give 1,2,4,6 Megs for a cache
as you like - and this cache is fast (RAM to RAM). With a
4 Meg c.c you run at EISA speed, and are stuck at that size.

With Linux, you use the full 8 Megs for the system, it uses
a sophisticated *dynamic* cache allocation scheme - grows and
shrinks - as needed. It doesnt know of the 4 Megs on a c.c,
and therefore wastes memory using its sophisticated *dynamic* 
cache allocation scheme. Much the same is true for Windows.

DOS may seem faster, but Ill bet a good EISA controller (no
cache) with a software cache of 4 Megs and another 4 Megs
of RAM is as "blindingly fast" as a 4 Meg c.c on a 4 Meg machine.

My analogy : A car (machine) with a trailer (controller).
You could improve performance by putting an engine in the
trailer - or getting a bigger engine for the car. Which
would you do?

bert

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