NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/comp/os/msdos/misc/4946

Text File | 1992-08-29 | 1.6 KB | 35 lines

Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Path: sparky!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!csus.edu!netcom.com!marquis
From: [e-mail] (Roger Marquis)
Subject: Re: WARNING !!!!! MS WINDOWS 3.1 SmartDrive Problem
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 92 20:03:40 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Lines: 24

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>
>Do NOT disable write-caching.  It is totally unnecessary and it will
>indeed slow things down.  Instead, simply fix any BAT files that
>reboot the machine, as noted above.  Other than that, exit to a DOS
>prompt and wait 5 seconds (the default pause time -- buffers will be
>flushed after 5 seconds or when the processor is idle, whichever
>occurs first) before powering down your machine.
>
Fred,

Not disabling write-caching is about as bad a piece of advice as you
can give someone.  I've been a UNIX and DOS systems administrator for
a number of years and from what I've seen the latest version of SMARTDRV
has caused more lost data than just about any other piece of software
on the market.  It doesn't matter how careful you are about flushing
the cache before shutting down if you use write-caching YOU WILL LOSE
DATA at some point.  The small amount of speed gained will not be
worth it.  Advocating write-caching is on par with recommending
against backups in my book.  Sure you'll save some time here and there
but in the long run ...

Roger ([e-mail])