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SMARTDRV.TEC
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1990-10-12
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ID:SD Microsoft's SMARTDrive disk cache
Quarterdeck Technical Note
by Stan Young
Using Microsoft's SMARTDRV.SYS
The Windows Setup procedure installs Microsoft's disk cache called
SMARTDRV.SYS. The default size of this cache tends to be large.
Windows can reclaim memory from this cache when it starts up,
however programs that are run outside of Windows which use expanded
memory cannot do this. If you run programs outside of Windows which
would benefit from expanded memory, you may want to consider either
removing SMARTDRV.SYS entirely from your CONFIG.SYS file, or at
least reducing its size.
SMARTDRV.SYS takes parameters to set the size of the cache, the
first parameter being the "NormalCacheSize" and the second being the
"MinimumCacheSize". An example SMARTDrive installation might look as
follows:
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.SYS 1024 256
In this example, SMARTDrive takes 1024K (1MB) of memory when you are
not in Windows and 256K while you are running Windows. While it is
difficult to suggest a cache size that might be best for you, one
possible suggestion might be to use the minimum amount only. To do
this, using the example above, you would edit the line to read:
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.SYS 256 256
No problems have been detected between any Quarterdeck products and
this cache, so if you feel you would benefit from disk caching, and
SMARTDrive meets your performance requirements, it should be fine to
use. As noted the default size tends to be a bit large for users
who are using programs that benefit from expanded memory, but the
information above should give you some hints on how to adjust this
usage.
Only you can determine the appropriate size of the cache, depending
on how disk intensive your programs are, compared to your programs
need for expanded memory. If you are not running programs that are
disk intensive, deleting the cache entirely may make sense.
Further information on the parameters used to control the size of
SMARTDRV.SYS can be found in the back of the Windows 3.0 manual.
Copyright (C) 1990 by Quarterdeck Office Systems
* * * E N D O F F I L E * * *