[comp.windows.ms] Use SMARTDrive or RAMDrive for Windows 3.0?

u-mwong%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Michael Wong) (09/01/90)

   Would anyone know which one provides a faster execution of windows
applications and what you use on your Windows system?  I can't decide
which one to install...also, I'd like to know what order--increasing
or decreasing???--are the methods of "Optimizing Windows" (Ch 13, p 503,
4th paragraph) described in the MS Windows 3.0 User's Guide.  Any info
and opinions would be greatly appreciated!

-Mike
----------
Michael Wong (u-mwong@peruvian.utah.edu)
University of Utah

poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) (09/05/90)

In article <1990Aug31.233106.7298@hellgate.utah.edu> u-mwong%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Michael Wong) writes:
>
>   Would anyone know which one provides a faster execution of windows
>applications and what you use on your Windows system?  I can't decide
>which one to install...also, I'd like to know what order--increasing
>or decreasing???--are the methods of "Optimizing Windows" (Ch 13, p 503,
>4th paragraph) described in the MS Windows 3.0 User's Guide.  Any info
>and opinions would be greatly appreciated!
>

SMARTDrive and RAMDrive are two distinct things. SMARTDrive is a disk caching
program, while RANDrive is a RAM disk utility. You can run both if you wish.

You should always run SMARTDrive (or some other disk cache program) to improve
performance. If you make use of a lot of temporary files, or do a lot of disk
intensive things, you may also want RAMDrive. While the use of SMARTDrive may
lessen the need somewhat for a RAM disk, is may be useful in some cases.

Note that the use of RAMDrive is not transparent, You must manually copy files
to the RAM disk (it will be designated by a drive letter) and operate on them
there. SMARTDrive on the other hand is totally transparent in its operation.


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