I am currently testing a Digital Research DR-DOS 5 developed CACHE R0.06 from 1990 because it is extremely flexible:

- Even works on 8088 CPUs
- May use Conventional Memory, EMS or XMS
- Cache size can range from 32 KB to 8064 KB
- It is extremely small at about 4 KB (in compressed executable form)

Not the most modern thing, for sure, but seems to be useful on many different scenarios, which is something I personally value.

The other one I heard good things in regards to its performance was Norton/Symantec's Speedrive 4.07 from 1993.

I have a backup filled with different DOS cache solutions. I just hope one day I manage to actually try them all (about 30 in total!).

igully wrote on 2025-02-07, 05:47:

I am currently testing a Digital Research DR-DOS 5 developed CACHE R0.06 from 1990 because it is extremely flexible: […]
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I am currently testing a Digital Research DR-DOS 5 developed CACHE R0.06 from 1990 because it is extremely flexible:

- Even works on 8088 CPUs
- May use Conventional Memory, EMS or XMS
- Cache size can range from 32 KB to 8064 KB
- It is extremely small at about 4 KB (in compressed executable form)

Not the most modern thing, for sure, but seems to be useful on many different scenarios, which is something I personally value.

The other one I heard good things in regards to its performance was Norton/Symantec's Speedrive 4.07 from 1993.

I have a backup filled with different DOS cache solutions. I just hope one day I manage to actually try them all (about 30 in total!).

Hey! That could be interesting for my Commodore PC10 here, maybe. 😃

So far, I mainly knew of those alternatives:

Re: Can I skip Smartdrive?

The downside with PC-Cache is memory consumption and the circumstance that small caches waste memory without real gain.
A few hundred KBs of memory are needed to make it worth while.

That sounds ridiculous at first, but the SmartDrive defaults mentioned in MS-DOS 6.x on-line help systems are in the megabytes, even.

Hi guys, thanks

Thats why i say modern alternative in title, because i have a 120GB FAT32 partition, and i dont want to have risk of corruption, or at least, minimize it. I already tried old solutions and some did not work, other did not work well, and two of them corrupt me the partition fat, PC-Cache Jo22 is one of them

Anyways igully i did not try cache from dr-dos, i will give a try

Oh, okay. Yes, that makes sense now. You're looking for a MS-DOS 7 era SmartDrive replacement..

Hm. I know that there's MS-DOS 7.1, PC-DOS 7.1 (as update for PC-DOS 2000), PTS-DOS 32 (aka PTS-DOS 7) and Datalight ROM-DOS 7.1..
- Novell DOS 7 predates Windows 95, but I believe Caldera DOS had gotten FAT32 support in its last versions.

Not sure which of them had shipped with a SmartDrive replacement, though.
The Helix bundle was said to be Windows 95 compatible, but that was probably meant in conjunction with original Windows 95 (DOS 7.0), which didn't have FAT32 yet.

So I don’t exactly know what to recommend, especially since I don’t exactly know how these programs do cache data.
If they communicate to disk through MS-DOS then the filesystem isn't so important, maybe.
And if they merely intercept BIOS calls in order to cache raw sectors, then they may not need to understand FAT/FAT32 either.

Edit: Just checked, there's a SmartDrive compatible in ROM-DOS 7.1.
I've found the manual online, it's on page 89.
Not sure about memory consumption, though.

Edit: Found a performance comparison chart between MS-DOS 6.22 and PTS-DOS 6.6; it mentions a "disk cache".
So maybe PTS-DOS 32 still has it, too? But if so, is it external or not? And can it handle FAT32?

@theelf: Why don't you load smartdrv in high memory?

Thanks guy i tested some of software you recommend, igully i tested caldera cache but or not work with FAT32 or the partition is too big, i tested nwcache from dr dos 7, but is far away in performance from smartdrv

Sadly i think i need to live with smartdrv

kixs wrote on 2025-02-07, 10:53:

@theelf: Why don't you load smartdrv in high memory?

Hi! i already did, but i need to use EMS for some games and software, and ems emulator i use, emsmagick use more than 64kb of upper memory, no problem, because even with smartdrv i have 623 convenctional and 88kb upper free, but sometimes i need ems and load some other stuff and im just on edge

Hi, doesn't SmartDrive use both UMBs and EMS (and XMS) by default ?
I can't find much info on it, but this site says it uses them.
https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/SMARTDRV

Yes, to get smartdrive to *not* use EMS paging there is a parameter /noems.
I'd think there would not be a need for a two EMS memory softwares running, unless you have some special hardware EMS board installed.

No, i use ems for some software, like lotus 1-2-3, pascal etc, or games, like Dreamweb, but specially software, i dont game much

Because i like to use real mode, i use emsmagick to emulate ems, but this need 64+ kb upper memory, and i dont know any other ems emulator

Anyways, right now with smartdrv using this commands, SMARTDRV 2048 /N /Q /B:8192 /E:32768, take 20kb, and left me with 623kb convenctional, and 98kb upper after load all my stuff exept ems, not very bad

I copy/paste my config.sys and autoexec.bat, any ideas to optimize will be welcome

1@ECHO OFF
2SET TEMP=C:\TMP
3SET PATH=C:\DOS;C:\WINDOWS;C:\NC;C:\SRC\DJGPP\BIN;C:\SRC\HXRT\BIN;C:\SOFT\UTIL%PATH%
4SET DJGPP=C:\SRC\DJGPP\DJGPP.ENV
5SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6
6LH SMARTDRV 2048 /N /Q /B:8192 /E:32768
7C:\DOS\UNISOUND\UNISOUND.COM /V99 /VC99 /VW99 /VF99 /VT0 /VB0 /VR0 /VU0 /VL99 /VM99 /VP99 /X3D1
8LH C:\DOS\SHSUCDX.COM /D:MSCD001 /QQ /C
9LH SHAREMU >NUL
10CTMOUSE /P /W
11C:\DOS\CGA4VGA\CGA4VGA.COM C:\DOS\CGA4VGA\BLUE.CFG >NUL

1DOS=NOAUTO,HIGH,UMB
2LASTDRIVEHIGH=G
3DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
4DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\UMBPCI.SYS
5FILESHIGH=60
6STACKSHIGH=8,512
7BUFFERSHIGH=30
8DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\XDVD2.SYS /D:MSCD001
9SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM /E:1024 /P

Just before boot, i have 623kb/98kb free with this config/autoexec

There's MAXMEM.SYS driver for M$DOS 7.1 which also works with UMBPCI, I think.
Maybe it can help to free even more conventional memory.

"I wrote a driver for M$DOS 7.1 which pretends to be QEMM and allows you to transfer some DOS data to UMB memory.
After use, my system only uses 8KB of conventional memory. "

https://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=22268

There were also alternative versions of MSCDEX.. Mainly NWCDEX.EXE and CORELCDX.COM.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSCDEX#Alternatives

Not exactly sure how much they consume on memory vs. SHSUCDX, though.
SHSUCDX needs 6KB, but "Using EMS with a page frame, NWCDEX can reduce its footprint even down to a few bytes in conventional memory."
The Helix version of MSCDEX is also being mentioned, which I think requires about 2KB for the stub in DOS memory.

Edit: Some info on DPMS/CLOAKING: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Protected_Mode_Services

At the end guys i decide to go to hardware solution... and replace all HDD with SSD disks

No more smartdrv need, 20kb+ gain and no noise

End of the story, I really wanted to give life to my HDD but are a part of old hardware i really dont miss