Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!bu-cs!bloom-beacon!think!mintaka!daemon From: atheybey@lcs.mit.edu (Andrew Heybey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: VD0 help Message-ID: Date: 8 Sep 89 13:38:40 GMT References: <935@wsu-cs.uucp> <11102@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <26766@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <1517@unocss.UUCP> <2500@abaa.UUCP> Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius) Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science Lines: 33 In article <2500@abaa.UUCP> esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker) writes: I was wondering (not meant to be a flame), but why use VD0: anymore? What does it offer that RAD: doesn't? Why did Perry upgrade it after RAD: came out? Comparative data and other responses are welcome. Just wondering! VD0: uses only as much memory as the data you have stored on it. RAD: is a fixed size (it is configurable, but not dynamic). RAD: always uses the maximum amount of memory it might need, no matter how much is actually stored in it. On the other hand, one can boot from RAD:, and also do diskcopys to/from it. Finally, (might as well compare everything available) RAM: is the fastest, but doesn't survive reboots. There is also VDK: (that I have never used) which has characteristics similar to VD0:, but is supposedly faster. Depending how much Perry has sped up VD0: that may no longer be the case. When I ever get around to revamping my boot disk, I plan to use all three: RAD: for a copy of my workbench disk (no need to have it in a drive all the time, fast cold-start (using diskcopy), and I can warm boot from it); VD0: for things (like compilers, dnet, etc.) that I want to survive reboots (and crashes that arn't too drastic) but whose memory I want to be able to reclaim; and RAM: for temporary files & other such things that I want to be fast. Of course, once I get a hard disk I will be free of many of the above contortions. Speaking of HD, RAM & speeding things up, what disk-caching programs exist for hard disks? I know of BlitzDisk from MicroSmiths--is it available seperately or must I buy TxED to get it? (I don't want TxED--my fingers have Emacs bindings ingrained.) -- Andrew Heybey, atheybey@ptt.lcs.mit.edu, uunet!ptt.lcs.mit.edu!atheybey