#Addbuffers
2 messages in this thread
No problem Don. I read some Peter Norton column (way back in my IBM days)
about disk buffers and Norton did a bunch of tests and found that using too
many buffers actually slowed things down. It was something like 32 for a hard
disk and 4 for a floppy (IBM). Any idea what the optimum number for the Amiga
is? I use 35 because then when I do a "dir" command, I don't have to wait for
disk access.
George
George,
I've found that 16 on a Floppy and 0 on my Xebec is about right. But
alot depends on what type of repetitive tasks you may be doing. The whole idea
behind the buffers is to hold data in RAM rather than on the disk so that if it
is called a 2nd time, it is immediately available. This idea pre-supposes that
your first have to fill the RAM and 2nd, that you next task also requires the
same data area from the disk.
If you are doing lots of repetitive tasks—such as text editing where
you load, edit, save, load re-edit and so forth….more buffer might speed
things up. Where as if you do different tasks such as load, edit save, compile,
test, re-load, etc. then in theory AddBuffers can actually slow you down.
Experiment a bit, but I do know that going above 30 doesn't seem to
offer any advantage at all.
Don