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From: rassilon@pogo.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Brian Preble)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Stacker and Windows 3
Message-ID: <16666@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 26 Jun 91 18:45:50 GMT
References: <1991Jun26.041734.20046@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au>
Sender: news@ai.mit.edu
Distribution: comp
Organization: Free Software Foundation
Lines: 28

In article <1991Jun26.041734.20046@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au> s907396@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Miramar [Eugene Mok]) writes:
>
>Has anyone out there used Stacker (a device driver to compress files
>to hard disk on-the-fly) with Windows 3? Is it safe? How much of a speed
>loss is there when accessing the HD? Can it be loaded high?

I'm using Stacker with Windows and it works fine.  There is no speed loss,
in fact I got a speed gain.  But I'm using the hardware version of Stacker,
and have a 2 meg disk cache, so any speed lossage would be hidden.  I've
been told that the software version slows down disk I/O by 2% if your
machine is less than 20 Mhz.  Mine's only 10 Mhz, but, as I said, the
hardware coprocessor and disk cache prevent lossage.

Stacker can be loaded high if you have a 386, QRAM, or LIM 4.0 EMS.
In addition to disk savings, Stacker increases the efficiency of disk
caches, as the data loaded into the cache is compressed.  Thus your
1 meg disk cache becomes a 2 meg cache, 2 meg to 4 meg, etc.  (Your
mileage may vary.)

>And what's the most stable disk cache for use with stacker and Windows 3?
>How do would you compare Hyperdisk and Super PC-Kwik?

I'm not familiar with PC-Kiwk.  Hyperdisk has problems with Stacker.
Specifically, you can't format floppies if you run Hyperdisk and
STacker together.  I called Stac's tech support line, and they suggested
disabling floppy cacheing.  I haven't tried that, yet.  For now I"m
using SmartDrv (which came with MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0).  SmartDrv
and Stacker get along fine.