Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bbn!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Ontrack Disk Manager + 80meg seagate = loss of 200k of memory
Summary: try small partitions
Message-ID: <23cf37e9@ralf>
Date: 14 Jan 89 12:07:05 GMT
Sender: ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Lines: 26
In-Reply-To: <71@VAX1.CC.UAKRON.EDU>

In article <71@VAX1.CC.UAKRON.EDU>, greggt@VAX1.CC.UAKRON.EDU (Gregg Thompson) writes:
}A friend of mine has a 80meg Seagate hard disk that was formatted with the
}Ontrack Disk Manager that came with it.  The problem now is that the driver
}takes up 200k worth of his memory!  He would love to put this driver into his

First, a question: is the disk formatted as a single partition?  If yes, then
Disk Manager works by faking DOS into thinking that the sectors are 2048 bytes
instead of 512 bytes (If the clusters are 8K, then you know that's what is
happening).  Now DOS has to allocate disk buffers which can hold those 2048
bytes, so a BUFFERS=99 statement in your CONFIG.SYS will use 198K worth of disk
buffers instead of 50K without Disk Manager (in addition to a few K for the
driver itself).

If you partition the disk into three partitions of 32 megs or less, then the
driver doesn't have to fake DOS into larger sectors, saving you a lot of RAM
for your disk buffers.  Unless you have files larger than 32 megs, there isn't
really any reason NOT to partition the disk into smaller chunks.  You might
also want to use BUFFERS=40 to BUFFERS=50 if you are currently using
BUFFERS=99--it quite likely will speed up your disk accesses, as well as
saving some more RAM.

--
UUCP: {ucbvax,harvard}!cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=-=- Voice: (412) 268-3053 (school)
ARPA: ralf@cs.cmu.edu  BIT: ralf%cs.cmu.edu@CMUCCVMA  FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/31
			Disclaimer? I claimed something?
	You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.