#: 7102 S6/Windows Developers
    08-Feb-88  17:29:00
Sb: #7060-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Eric Brown (MSV) 76701,55
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,

Smartdrv does disk caching at all times, not just when in Windows. I suspect
the advice to remove RAM disk programs is because it is a waste of RAM, given
Smartdrv's capabilities. I do not know if there actually would be a conflict if
all were installed correctly.


    Eric

#: 7112 S6/Windows Developers
    08-Feb-88  18:07:06
Sb: #7102-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Eric Brown (MSV) 76701,55 (X)

Thanks, Eric.  I'll await some info on conflicts between VDISK and Smartdrive.
The reason why I still want VDISK is to speed up the time it takes to invoke my
editor.  It probably would not stay in the cache.
  I have around 2MB of expanded memory that goes unused, so I thought I would
have a 1MB cache and a 1MB RAM disk.  Both pretty generous, I think.
  --Marc

#: 7385 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  02:07:13
Sb: #7112-#SMARTDrive
Fm: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,

Why don't you just use RAMDRIVE instead of VDISK, anyway?  RAMDRIVE tests out
faster than VDISK, for one thing.


       --- Noel

J#: 7453 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  11:21:26
Sb: #7385-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030 (X)

Noel--
  I WANT to use RAMDRIVE!  Some messages here indicate that it can use EXPANDED
memory, but I didn't see how to do that in the RAMDRIVE.TXT file that came with
my Windows 2.0.  Is /E for extended or expanded?
 --Marc

#: 7470 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  12:17:04
Sb: #7453-#SMARTDrive
Fm: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,

Er, would you believe /A for _A_boveboard?  Works like a champ.  Sorry for the
confusion.  Little bit of TAPLag(tm) last night.  :-)

       --- Noel

#: 7574 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  01:26:12
Sb: #7470-SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030 (X)

I guessed at /A, since that's what Smartdrive uses, and it works fine now.
RES.SYS and VDISK.SYS are gone now (although I never actually saw any problems,
wurdz ar stil speld just rite, but I took them out anyway, on your advice.  I
now will run with Ramdrive (in expanded memory) and Smartdrive.
  Thanks for all your help!
  --Marc

#: 7115 S6/Windows Developers
    08-Feb-88  18:25:20
Sb: #7060-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Steve Liffick (SL) 76701,154
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,
I know of no conflicts using SMARTDrive with a RAMdisk.  Note
that there used to be some problems using VDISK with Windows.
You may want to use the RAMdrive.sys provided with the Windows
package.  I think the main issue surrounding the use of both
SMARTDrive and a RAMdisk was memory use.  Specifically, you 
don't really need both and since in most operations the caching
program is preferrable to a memory disk drive, it is suggested
the SMARTdrive be used by its lonesome.  You could of course allow
windows to use your expanded memory (that was exPANDED wasn't it?)
for swapping purposes...  That in itself results in mucho better
performance with memory hungry apps. 
-Steve

#: 7126 S6/Windows Developers
    08-Feb-88  19:40:50
Sb: #7115-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Steve Liffick (SL) 76701,154 (X)

Thanks, Steve, for your insights.
 I think that a cache may help sometimes, and it may help with Windows.  But
for what I do most--compiling and linking--it helps not at all.  Actually, it
hurts, because I suspect that nothing useful is ever in the cache, but it takes
time to discover that fact.  On the other hand, putting some files in a RAM
disk (such as the giant windows.h and some libraries) helps significantly.
 This is based on actual timings, not my subjective judgement.  If my ua susage
were different, no doubt I would see different results.
  --Marc

#: 7394 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  02:18:11
Sb: #7126-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Michael Geary (TA) 76146,42
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Hi Marc,

I use RAMDRIVE and SMARTDRV together and it's a great combination.  I wouldn't
use VDISK together with either of them, or with Windows itself for that matter.
VDISK doesn't allocate extended memory in a way that's compatible with the
other programs.  RMADRIVE and SMARTDRV start allocating from the top of memory
working down, and they fix up the BIOS call that asks how much memory there is
to say there's less, thereby making the memory they allocated "disappear". That
way, they don't conflict with each other and also don't conflict with Windows
or other programs.

BTW, my experience has been that SMARTDRV *does* help a lot with compilations.
With a megabyte of cache, it does seem to cut a good chunk of time off.  Best
of all, of course, is to have a RAMDRIVE, too, with SET TMP= so the compiler
temp files go there.

-Mike

#: 7455 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  11:25:01
Sb: #7394-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Michael Geary (TA) 76146,42 (X)

Mike--
  Glad you joined this thread.  Everyone except me knows how to get RAMDRIVE to
use expanded memory.  I recall seeing in RAMDRIVE.TXT only how to get it to use
extended memory.  I'll reread the file.  What is the option, do you know?
 --Marc

#: 7487 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  15:20:57
Sb: #7455-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Michael Geary (TA) 76146,42
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Darned if I know, Marc.  I've puzzled over that one too.  I'm running RAMDRIVE
in extended memory - never did find an option like SMARTDRV has to use expanded
instead of extended.  Maybe the /A switch works like for SMARTDRV??

-Mike

#: 7577 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  01:29:37
Sb: #7487-SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Michael Geary (TA) 76146,42 (X)

Mike--
  I experimentally discovered that /A indeed works with RAMDRIVE.  RES.SYS is
out of my config.sys now, and mapmem verifies that Ramdrive indeed took
expanded memory.  All is OK now.
  --Marc

#: 7557 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  23:19:47
Sb: #7394-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Bruce Kitchin 75046,1131
To: Michael Geary (TA) 76146,42 (X)

I have a question relative to SMARTDRV.  Being new to disk caching, I'm not
sure what might happen.  Will using a Disk organizer/ optimizier/ defragger run
into conflict with SMARTDRV?  So far, not being sure, I've made sure to reboot
without SMARTDRV before doing this.  BTW, it there any way to turn off or
unload SMARTDRV after you start running (while you're in Dos, NOT in Windows). 
Thanks for any info.  Bruce

#: 7581 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  02:07:10
Sb: #7557-SMARTDrive
Fm: Michael Geary (TA) 76146,42
To: Bruce Kitchin 75046,1131 (X)

Boy, that is a good question.  I've got no idea whether it's safe to run a disk
optimizer while SMARTDRV is loaded.  It sounds like you're doing the safest
thing by rebooting without it.  It seems that if SMARTDRV is doing its job
right - and if the disk optimizer uses normal DOS calls (i.e. not the file I/O
calls but the INT 25/26 calls) - it ought to be safe.  But who knows...

There isn't any way to turn off SMARTDRV once you're running, so you just have
to reboot with a different CONFIG.SYS...

-Mike

#: 7612 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  09:49:49
Sb: #7557-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Alec Saunders, WES 76126,54
To: Bruce Kitchin 75046,1131 (X)

Bruce,
       I'm either brave or foolish. I have run SoftLogic's disk optimizer with
SMARTDRV running, and I have encountered no problems. It may even run faster...

Which optimizer are you using? At one time I used to use the MACE UTILITIES
UnFragment, but no longer do so after having it trash my disk during an abort.
The SoftLogic optimizer is certainly not the fastest on the market, but it
appears to be one of the safer ones.

Alec.

#: 7691 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  22:24:35
Sb: #7612-SMARTDrive
Fm: Bruce Kitchin 75046,1131
To: Alec Saunders, WES 76126,54 (X)

For a while I tried DOG101A which worked fairly well but slow.  I liked the
control it gave.  But since I got the Adv Ed of Norton Utilities, I've used
their Speed Disk.  It works faster than DOG is full organization but lacks the
fast mode.

Anyway Norton has no warnings against disk caches (only against memory resident
program that access disk and copy protection schemes).  All my logic says that
it should work.  That feeling down in my gut says I don't want to risk it. 
Thanks for sharing your experience and thanks to Mike for his comments.

#: 7702 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  22:41:26
Sb: #7612-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Chuck Venter 73036,510
To: Alec Saunders, WES 76126,54 (X)


I have been using the Golden Bow Disk Cache and Vopt together. Since they come
from the same vendor I have had not conflicts.

Has anyone done a comparison between Disk Cache programs, specifically
SmartDrive and GB's Cache-AT? Does Smartdrive support the Iomega Bernoulli box?

I have been looking for a program that would combine the abilities of a Cache
and a Ram drive. It seems that it would be convient to be able to look at what
data was in the cache, and be able to indicate preferences for certain data. It
might be usefull to be able to get better information about what stays in and
what goes out.

For example, If I am working along with my editor and compiler nicely stored in
a 1 meg cahe, then I read a 1.1 meg group of data: the data replaces all my
utilities! If I could give preference to .EXE files, and indicate that files
with other extensions should fight over x% of the cache, then I could keep the
good stuff loaded. If I could at least get some statistics of what the cache
decided to hold onto, then I could set up a ramdisk to hold my utils.

Does the cache know not to cache the ram disk? I assume so..

#: 7771 S6/Windows Developers
    12-Feb-88  10:17:52
Sb: #7702-SMARTDrive
Fm: Alec Saunders, WES 76126,54
To: Chuck Venter 73036,510

Chuck,
       I have played with Golden Bow's Cache-AT as it came with the Mace
Utilities. I found it significantly slower than SMARTDRV (by about 90%), which
is why I switched. My copy is over a year old though --- I gave up using
anything from Mace the first time it trashed my 60M hard disk. It may have
improved.

       Alec.

#: 7720 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  23:44:51
Sb: #7557-SMARTDrive
Fm: Eric Brown (MSV) 76701,55
To: Bruce Kitchin 75046,1131

Bruce,

I have used an internal microsoft disk organizer. It didn't conflict with
Smartdrv. Smartdrive also seems to coexist with Norton's sector modifying
programs like nu and ds. Smartdrv appears to be very inocculous. But it sure
makes an amazing difference in oft used programs' load time. (-:

    Eric



#: 7435 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  10:55:52
Sb: #7126-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Pete Jacobsen 72307,2416
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,
   I agree - as a developer, the biggest savings to me are  1) having the tmp
(and temp) files *written* to ramdrive only, and  2) getting access to the bulk
of include and library files needed to compile and link.  With the amount of
memory you are talking about for the smartdrv, you may well find that the
include and library files are *always* in the cache.  When I run from DOS, I
have a 2mb smartdrv and a smaller ramdrive.  The system certainly acts like the
include/lib files are in cache!  When I'm in win386, however, I have much less
room.  I like to *force* the system to keep my include files in the smaller
ramdrive rather than keep flapping over what the last accessed thing was. 
(BTW, this obviously confirms that smartdrv works with DOS!  <grin>)
                                       -Pete



#: 7460 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  11:29:29
Sb: #7435-SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Pete Jacobsen 72307,2416

Pete--
  I think the includes and libs would stay in the cache only if you compile and
link rapidly in succession.  Other stuff -- such as editing, grepping, etc. --
that you do in between will I think force it out of the cache.  Since I have
gobs of memory, I just put windows.h and the libs in the RAM disk (along with
the editor, command.com, and a few other things).
 --Marc

#: 7177 S6/Windows Developers
    08-Feb-88  23:32:18
Sb: #7060-#SMARTDrive
Fm: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,

Yes, SMARTDRV is effective outside of Windows.

Microsoft's SMARTDRV, RAMDRIVE and other extended memory products use a certain
convention for handling allocation of extended memory that may conflict with
things like VDISK.


       --- Noel

#: 7182 S6/Windows Developers
    09-Feb-88  00:09:16
Sb: #7177-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030 (X)

Noel--
  Do you know if SMARTDRV is compatible with RAMDRIVE?  Is the conflict with
VDISK theoretical, or does it actually exist?
  --Marc

#: 7191 S6/Windows Developers
    09-Feb-88  00:41:05
Sb: #7182-#SMARTDrive
Fm: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,

Yes, SMARTDRV is compatible with RAMDRIVE.  The conflict with VDISK can be very
real.


       --- Noel

#: 7324 S6/Windows Developers
    09-Feb-88  20:03:53
Sb: #7191-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030 (X)

Thanks, Noel--  I will remove VDISK and install RAMDRIVE.
  In a few hours of use, nothing went bad on me, but I will take your word as
gospel.
  Perhaps I am OK because I am running PC-DOS 3.3 on a genuine IBM AT?
  --Marc

#: 7346 S6/Windows Developers
    09-Feb-88  21:21:21
Sb: #7324-#SMARTDrive
Fm: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,

Probably you're ok because you don't happen to have anything else trying to use
extended memory (such as Excel). Microsoft's products have a better way of
communicating the use of extended memory, whereas very few programs know how to
cooperate with VDISK.


       --- Noel

#: 7449 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  11:17:19
Sb: #7346-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030 (X)

Noel--
  Do you mean that Excel uses EXTENDED memory, or EXPANDED memory?
 --Marc

#: 7469 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  12:16:59
Sb: #7449-#SMARTDrive
Fm: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,

Excel has it's own builtin EXTENDED memory driver which it can optionally use
to increase it's performance by 70% over SMARTDRV.

       --- Noel

#: 7573 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  01:24:14
Sb: #7469-SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: SysOp Noel J. Bergman 73220,1030 (X)

Interesting...


#: 7110 S6/Windows Developers
    08-Feb-88  18:04:04
Sb: #7090-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Alec Saunders, WES 76126,54 (X)

Thanks, Alec.  But I'm still wondering whether Smartdrive + VDISK is a safe
combination.

#: 7434 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  10:55:42
Sb: #7110-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Pete Jacobsen 72307,2416
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

Marc,
   As I understand it, Vdisk is not a good plan with smartdrv - better
Ramdrive.  The reason is that Vdisk starts taking it's memory at the 1meg
boundary and goes up.  Ramdrive and Smartdrv take their memory from the top of
available memory and work down, and tell the system that the memory they are
using is gone.  This lets programs like win386 or others that want to use that
upper memory use what is left without finding vdisk in the way.
   I realize that this answer is only meaningful for extended memory.  I don't
know about expanded memory (but vdisk won't use expanded, so you must be
talking about extended, right?)
                               -Pete



#: 7458 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  11:27:05
Sb: #7434-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Pete Jacobsen 72307,2416

Pete--
  VDISK on my system is using what it thinks is extended, simulated on expanded
with AST's REX.SYS.  SMARTDRIVE, on the other hand, thinks it is using
expanded, which it actually is.
  I now am 110% convinced that I want RAMDRIVE instead of VDISK, and as soon as
I figure out how to tell RAMDRIVE to use expanded memory I will set it up that
way.
  --Marc

#: 7703 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  22:41:35
Sb: #7458-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Chuck Venter 73036,510
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

I see that you have an AST machine of some sort, I have an AST Premium 286.

Since we have the easy choice, have you found an advantage to Expanded vs
Extended?

It sounds to me that it would be best to have Extended for OS/2, but Expanded
for Windows and some DOS apps. Unfortunatly it's not THAT easy to switch
between the two.

I am using Golden Bow's Cache program (the one that came with Mace). It works
well, but I have not yet tried SmartDrive. Do you know if Smartdrive works any
better in Expande or Extended?



#: 7722 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  23:47:18
Sb: #7703-SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Chuck Venter 73036,510

Chuck--
  I don't have an AST machine--I just have a Rampage AT board.  I am the last
one to ask to compare cache programs, because (1) I haven't had any trouble
with any of them, and (2) I see very little effect (only a few percent) for the
stuff I do.
  Theoretically, access to extended memory would be faster than expanded, as
pages don't have to be mapped in.  Of course, a particular implementation might
be better than another, so this generalization doesn't say anything about how
one cache would fare over another.
  With OS/2, clearly you want lots of extended (not expanded) memory.  Same
with UNIX or Xenix.
  --Marc

#: 7111 S6/Windows Developers
    08-Feb-88  18:05:07
Sb: #7095-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Ladislav Nemec 74226,2160 (X)

Ladislav--
  So, I gather you are confirming that smartdrive works w/o windows? Do you
know whether it is safe to run it with VDISK?
  --Marc

#: 7511 S6/Windows Developers
    10-Feb-88  18:52:09
Sb: #7111-#SMARTDrive
Fm: Ladislav Nemec 74226,2160
To: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233 (X)

I do not think so.  MS cautiones, in general terms, against using any
combination of cache/ramdisk software other than their own, the one which comes
with Windows 2.03 or Excel.  They have their Ramdrive.sys there and I have been
using the combination of smartrdrv.sys and ramdrive.sys for a week or so
without any trouble.  BTW, I tried on PS/2 50 and 60 to utilize the 384 K given
us by IBM for a first smartdrv.sys installed without the /A option, i.e., in
the extended memory.  It seems to work fine, so far.  Regards, L.

#: 7578 S6/Windows Developers
    11-Feb-88  01:31:03
Sb: #7511-SMARTDrive
Fm: Marc Rochkind 75765,1233
To: Ladislav Nemec 74226,2160

Ladislav--
  I too am now using Ramdrive and Smartdirve, and everyone confirms what you
say -- that these are the only safe combinations.  The /A option on Ramdrive
puts it into expanded memory.  I think that option is undocumented; I know I
couldn't find it.
 --Marc