Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tnc!m0154
From: m0154@tnc.UUCP (GUY GARNETT)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Looking for a disk cache
Message-ID: <640@tnc.UUCP>
Date: 26 Dec 90 17:45:35 GMT
References: <1990Dec21.163546@lemur.inria.fr>
Reply-To: m0154@tnc.UUCP (GUY GARNETT)
Organization: The Next Challenge, Fairfax, Va.
Lines: 50

In article <1990Dec21.163546@lemur.inria.fr> colas@lemur.inria.fr (Colas Nahaboo) writes:
>I am looking for a disk cache (preferably for floppies, PD or commercial) with
>these features:
>
>- able to buffer whole track when accessing one sector (yes I have  a lot of
>  ram, although this being an option would be nice)
>
>- buffering writes, and when flushing, sorting the sectors by numbers so that
>  it can do a smooth fast single-direction head movement
>
>- allocating buffers in Fast Ram
>
>Or other nice features (automatic bufferring of headers, do not buffer "big"
>reads...)
>
>Does FaccII or BlitzDisk have these features? 
>Are there other such programs available?
>Do they work with FFS?
>Did you use them?
>Did they trashed your disks ? :-)
>etc...
>
>--
>Colas Nahaboo, Bull Research France -- Koala Project -- GWM X11 Window Manager
>Internet: colas@mirsa.inria.fr, Phone: (33) 93.65.77.70, Fax: (33) 93 65 77 66
>INRIA Sophia, 2004, rte des Lucioles, B.P.109 - 06561 Valbonne Cedex, FRANCE


I have used FaccII for a couple of years now, and have had no problems
with it.  It can store its buffer in FAST RAM; you set the size of the
cache (and you can change it while FaccII is running, too).  FaccII
knows the difference between "special" (directory and file header)
blocks and regular data blocks.  It can also detect low-memory
situations, and will release cache memory when there is a shortage. 
As far as I can tell, it does not buffer writes; all disk writes go
straight through to the disk.  FaccII can be told to preserve the
special blocks in prefrence to data blocks when it is running out of
cache space.  For a dual-floppy system, 512 blocks (256k of cache)
gives a good performance boost without chweing up too much RAM.  Of
course, you could always ask for 880k of cache per floppy of you
wanted to ...

I use FaccII every time I boot up my Amiga.  I have had not Guru's or
trashed disks which I can attribute to FaccII.

Only Gripe: FaccII flushes the cache whenever a disk is ejected, even
if something still has files locked on the disk (it would be nice if
it kept the disk's cache around until I was all done with the disk).

Wildstar