Orange Micro RAMPAK 4GS, Operator'S Manual, Page: 17 / 25

spooling or other memory functions. Other times, no
effort is even put forth to understand caching, since the
idea of altering the way your system handles memory
really doesn’t sound too “safe” anyway. Once
understood and used effectively, disk caching will
become a very powerful system enhancement for
virtually any user. Your RamPak 4GS utility may be the
most powerful, easy to use caching tool ever written for a
microcomputer.
A cache is actually a disk drive enhancement. A
cache is established and assigned to a specific system
drive, to which it is then dedicated. Your Apple IIGS can
access up to 16 drives in a single configuration, and the
RamPak Memory Management Utilities has the ability to
maintain caches for all of these drives.
“Cache” is a French word which means “hiding
place.” A disk cache is, in effect, a hiding place for
important data. Once a cache is established, it serves as
an intelligent storage area for that drive, holding as much
of your “often used” data from that drive as possible in
the system RAM you have specified. It achieves this by
keeping track of what data you use most when you use
that drive. As data is requested, the cache will load that
data into RAM and keep it there as long as you are
accessing it often. Once the cache is full, the least-used
data will be removed from the cache. Since data held in
RAM loads in an instant, without the physical spinning of
drives, this leads to maximum speed and efficiency in
running applications and accessing files.
The RamPak utilities offer you a choice of either
“dynamic” or “manual” caching. Dynamic caching will
automatically take over all caching functions for you,
letting your memory operate at optimal levels with a
minimum of interaction on your part. Dynamic cache
allocation is recommended for most caching purposes.
Manual cache allocation allows you to manually allocate
the amount of RAM to be used for caching in each disk
drive.
Caching is strictly a READ utility. Any data saved to
disk is immediately written to the physical drive, so
accidental loss of a cache will not result in lost work.
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