Disk RAM Cache

[Dmacleod]

I suggest adding cache memory support for virtual disks created with daemon tools for better running.
The memory should be taked from system ram or other caching devices like windows swap (be remembered to warn users about need of restart after no usage of disk) and I propose to be configurable from 1MB up to 64 MB common usage should be 1MB up to 8MB on cdrom drives and 1MB up 16MB on DVD drives emulated.
This cache memory will behave alike cache on real drives permitting acceleration on applications found on cdroms and dvdroms emulated by the program.
A warning procedure must be stated for the situation when less RAM is remaining for workstation.
The allocation must be independent as if a cdrom and a dvdrom is emulated both can have ram memory support of different capacities.
Any comments about this subject from anyone interrested I expect on this email address n.bogdan@home.ro and put in the subject line "Daemon tools RAM cache" without the quotes; also can be posted directly on site.

[JariK-Tietomedia]

This is a completely useless function, a modern OS like Windows NT 5.x already does a great job caching hard drives - even a very expensive ($1000s) commercial solution called Clevercache Pro only increases the most heavy databases' IO/s by 0-7%.

Simulated CD/DVD drive contents already exist on hard disks, the only way to make data transfers from them faster is to copy entire datasets to RAM disks (if you have 2GB+ RAM and can keep swapping disabled) or use a RAID.

Using the swap file as a disk cache is an old crazy idea - this was tried in Windows 95 and by time Windows 98 came out this "feature" was missing and thank goddess it hasn't reappeared since. One of the most popular tweaks even was to disable this madness in system.ini.

If you think how memory managment works on Windows (particularly on NT 5.x series) you will see how this would make things just slower.