The description below is from the book DOS the
Easy Way by Everett Murdock Ph.D.
CLICK HERE
for information about downloading the book.
Type: Internal (2.0 and later)
Syntax:
BUFFERS=(number),(read-ahead number)
Purpose: Used in the CONFIG.SYS file to set the number of disk
buffers
(a number from 1 to 99) that will be available for use during data
input. Also
used to set a value for the number of sectors to be read in advance
(read-ahead)
during data input operations.
Discussion
While conducting input and output operations, DOS stores information in
memory
buffers so that it will be readily available when requested by an
application.
The more buffers set in the CONFIG.SYS file with the BUFFERS command, the
faster
DOS will be able to access the information requested. You should
experiment to
determine the most efficient number of buffers for your computer and the
applications you are running. The same is true for determining the
appropriate
number of read-ahead buffers. The read ahead buffers determine the
amount of
data DOS will read from the disk in addition to the data requested by the
application.
For more information about the BUFFERS command, see Chapter 6, Tips for Advanced Users, in the downloadable book DOS the Easy Way.
Options
number - Sets the number of disk buffers DOS should use (1 to 99). If
no
value is provided the default value (determined by the amount of memory
in your
computer) will be used. Generally, if you have 512K of memory, the
default will
be 15.
read ahead - Sets the number of buffers in the secondary or read-ahead
cache.
DOS 5.0 allows values of 1 to 8 with 1 as the default. In DOS 6.0 you
can specify 0 to 8 with 0 as the default.
Example
To set buffers to 20 and read-ahead buffers to 2 enter the following line
in your CONFIG.SYS file
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