[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Looking for a Disk Cache

svv@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Nobody in Particular) (01/14/88)

I'm looking for a piece of software that will act as a disk cache on my
IBM PC AT. I called a guy at 800-Software, and he didn't even know what
a cache was. The AT is being used as a server at my work, and seeing that
most of the operations performed are file operations, I thought it
would speed things up if I could set aside some RAM for storing most-
frequently-used programs.

I have a similar caching program that came with the 286 board I bought 
for my PC, but that software only works with the board.

Thanks in Advance,

S. Vasudevan
U.C. Berkeley
svv@cory.berkeley.edu

karthur@codas.att.com (Kurt_R_Arthur) (01/14/88)

In article <159@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> svv@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Nobody in Particular) writes:
> 
> I'm looking for a piece of software that will act as a disk cache on my
> IBM PC AT. I called a guy at 800-Software, and he didn't even know what
> a cache was. The AT is being used as a server at my work, and seeing that
> most of the operations performed are file operations, I thought it
> would speed things up if I could set aside some RAM for storing most-
> frequently-used programs.

Lightning from Personal Computer Support Group (PCSG, somewhere in Texas)
is a very good cache.  It will speed up all disks (including Bernoullis and
floppies), allows global or selective disabling of cache, provides statistics
on disk speed ups, allows the user to determine cache size and is very quick. 
Price is < $100.

PCSG advertises in most of the trade publications.

The only known incompatibility is between Lightning and Compaq's new DOS 3.31,
which uses a new disk format technique (no one except Compaq supports a cache
for DOS 3.31 yet).

When I purchased Lightning there were two identical versions, one copy-
protected, the other was not. 

I have used Lightning for about a year & have been very pleased.


Kurt Arthur
Software Services of Florida, Inc.