Adding a cache card

[Michael Peirce]

In article <1991Jan24.233305.13194 at magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu>, talley at hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (James T. Talley) writes:
> 
> I have some questions about adding a cache card to a Mac IIci
> running A/UX 2.0.  The Mac IIci in question has 8 meg of RAM, 80
> meg internal and 40 meg external hard drives.  It will primarily
> be a network database/mail server.  In other words, no one will
> be using Macish applications on the console on a regular basis.
> 
> The questions are:
> 
> 1) Is it worth adding a cache card?  Will it enhance the speed of
>    operation significantly for A/UX applications?

I can notice the difference, but it's not all that much.  It depends
alot on what operations you are doing.  It doesn't really help disk
I/O much, but CPU bound tasks can run quite a bit fast.

> 2) How hard is it to install?  Do I just plug it in?  Will I have
>    to run newconfig?  Do I have to start hacking the kernel with a
>    hex binary editor?  (Just kidding. :-)

I just plugged it in and went. I'm not (currently) running A/UX, but
I doubt there is any hassle involved.

> 3) Does anyone have any recommendations on a particular brand?
>    Shall I just buy Apple's?

Apple's isn't shipping right now (but will be soon).  They made a
few mistakes when they designed it :-) and had to recall there card.

I bought a MacCache at the MacWorld Expo.  It works great and comes
with a little cdev that lets you turn it the cache on or off.  I picked
up the 64K version.  They also have a 32K version, but the cost is
the same so I went for the slightly greater performance the 64K provides.

The only warning I know of is that if you are using bus master NuBus
cards, make sure the cache you buy supports it.  Evidently some don't
and you end up with a corrupted cache.  The MacCache claims to be
NuBus master compatible.

-- michael


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