Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!sun.soe!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!nelson From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Disk Cache programs vs. BUFFERS=: Whats the diff? Message-ID: Date: 8 Oct 88 04:12:19 GMT References: <3017@dalcs.UUCP> Sender: root@sun.soe Reply-To: nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu Distribution: na Organization: Clarkson University Lines: 29 In-reply-to: lane@dalcs.UUCP's message of 6 Oct 88 12:46:22 GMT In article <3017@dalcs.UUCP> lane@dalcs.UUCP (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane) writes: So what would be the difference between defining BUFFERS=128 vs. using a 64K cache? BUFFERS are only used to satisfy requests for partial sectors. If you have a disk cache are you just as well to set BUFFERS=3 or less? No. I made some measurements of the time to do three chkdsks versus the number of buffers. The curve goes roughly like this: Prior to five you have an exponential decrease, and from five on up you have a linear increase. . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 So I would not advise you to set your buffers less than three. Five was optimal, and six was near optimal. I cannot answer the rest of your questions. -- --russ (nelson@clutx [.bitnet | .clarkson.edu]) To surrender is to remain in the hands of barbarians for the rest of my life. To fight is to leave my bones exposed in the desert waste.