BUFFERS--Notes

Using BUFFERS with DriveSpace

If you are using SMARTDrive with DriveSpace and MS-DOS is loaded into the
HMA, set BUFFERS=10. This ensures that there will be enough room in the HMA
for MS-DOS, DriveSpace, and all your buffers. (If BUFFERS is set to a value
higher than 10, there might not be enough room in the HMA for all your
buffers, and MS-DOS will place all the buffers into conventional memory.) If
you're using SMARTDrive, specifying more than 10 buffers will not speed up
your system much, but will use additional memory.

Using BUFFERS with SMARTDRV.EXE

If you are using SMARTDRV.EXE, either use a smaller value for BUFFERS, or do
not specify a BUFFERS command at all.

How MS-DOS uses buffers

MS-DOS uses the memory reserved for each disk buffer to hold data during
read and write operations. To achieve the best performance with programs
such as word processors, specify a value between 10 and 20 for n. If you
plan to create many subdirectories, you might want to increase the number of
buffers to 20 or 30. Each buffer requires approximately 532 bytes of memory.
Therefore, the more buffers you have, the less memory you have available for
programs. (To find out how much memory MS-DOS is using for disk buffers, use
the MEM /D /P command.)

If MS-DOS is loaded in the high memory area (HMA) and there is enough room
in the HMA to contain all the buffers, MS-DOS also places the buffers in the
HMA. If you specify more than 48 buffers, or if you upgraded from MS-DOS
6.2, are running DriveSpace, and specify more than 10 buffers, there might
not be enough room in the HMA for all the buffers. In that case, MS-DOS
places all of the buffers into conventional memory.

Using the secondary buffer cache

Using the cache can speed up certain disk operations if you are using a
computer with an 8086 processor. If you are using a computer with a faster
processor, it is better to use <SMARTDRV> for a cache.