            


            AddBuffers(V1.3,2.x,3.x in C:)



            NAME 

            AddBuffers - Increase the sector cache for system 
        disk drives.

            SYNOPSIS

            AddBuffers DRIVE BUFFER 

            DESCRIPTION

            This command increases the number of disk buffers 
        used by the system for disk drive access. By increasing 
        the number of buffers, you can reduce disk access time at 
        the cost of losing memory to the sector cache.

            Buffers are areas of reserved Ram. In here 
        information frequently accessed on the device is stored.  
        This means AmigaDos does not have to access the drive so 
        much, thus speeding up the disk operations.

            The size of the disk sector depends on the device. 
        For instance, the standard Amiga double density floppy 
        drive has 512 bytes per sector. So, if you add 10 buffers 
        then it will cost you 5120 bytes of memory.  This amount 
        is dynamic.  In other words, the memory is not used until 
        a disk access is made). AddBuffers will only work with
        valid AmigaDos devices. 

            The buffers specified are used for a specific drive, 
        and do not affect the performance of the other drives in 
        the system.

            If using 1.x Commodore recommends not using more than 
        25-30 buffers with the standard filesystem, because more 
        than this does not improve system performance by much.  
        With the new FastFileSystem (and a hard drive), more 
        buffers may increase performance, so more than 30 may be 
        used to good effect if you have the memory.

            Starting with version 1.3 of AddBuffers allows you to 
        set buffers for up to four disk drives with a single 
        command line.

            The default number of buffers are 5 for floppy and 30 
        for hard drives.

            Those formatting using the Fast File System (2.x and 
        above) will always benefit from more disk buffers. More 
        likely than not, the buffers are allocated during the 
        partitioning, and it is stored in the Rigid Disk Blocks 
        (RDB).

            With buffer space more information will be read from 
        the disk into memory, thereby making disk searches and 
        transfers much quicker. So, you are sacrificing memory 
        for programs in exchange for quicker disk access.

            For 2.x and 3.x ONLY: You can use this command to 
        find out how many buffers are assigned to a drive. You 
        can also subtract buffers to free up some memory.

            For 2.x and 3.x ONLY: You can assign a negative 
        number of buffers. If you do this that number of buffers 
        will be subtracted from the total  assigned to your 
        drive. AmigaDOS will never lower the buffers below 1 
        buffer. The only time you may want to do this is if you 
        are running a huge program that will take every bit of 
        memory you have. This will free up some of your memory.


     KEYWORDS

        DRIVE
            This is the name of the drive you want to buffer. It 
        can be either a floppy drive or a harddrive. Do not 
        assign buffers to RAM. You will slow down your system 
        considerably because all of its information is already 
        stored there. Only valid AmigaDos devices can be assigned
        buffers.

        BUFFERS
            The number of 512-byte buffers to add.  15 is how 
        Commodore set up your start-up sequence. This is a decent 
        number but not the best if you have more than enough ram. 
        Commodore set the buffers to 15 because the first Amigas 
        carried only 512k of RAM.  Optimum range is at about 30 
        buffers (15k of ram).  And again at 100 buffers (50k of 
        memory). Number below 30 and above 100 will not do you 
        much good.




            EXAMPLE
          1. To add 15 buffers to the sector cache for drive df0 
        do:

             AddBuffers DF0: 15

          2. To add 10 more buffers to df0:

             AddBuffers DF0: 10 


		   For 2.x and 3.x ONLY:
          3. To subtract 10 buffers from df0:

		     AddBuffers DF0: -10 dh0: -20

          4. To Return the numbers of buffers assigned to df0:

			 AddBuffers DF0:

