The Outer Limits Bulletin Board System and Lyon Computers and Software Hello fellow SysOps! Since you grabed this file you must be interested in a cacheing controller. I've been a Sysop for about 4 years and have been into computers and BBS's for about 8 years. I presently use a cacheing controller with 4 megs of ram installed. I have used Hyperdisk (R) Disk cacheing software in the past and have found it to be a decent product, but tricky and not too dependable, at least in comparison to a controller. I always used Hyperdisk with staged writes to increase mail tossing speed as well as the general speed of the BBS. These are the problems I experienced with Hyperdisk: 1) It takes away from my system ram. Ram that can be used for other things like Ramdisks, ect. 2) I could never run WC! in a NONE protection mode. I would always get errors in my data files and would have to run Wcrepair about once a week. These mostly occurred in the Message base more than likely when tossing mail. Running in the "NONE" mode verses PARTIAL or FULL is much faster! Some sysops report no problems running Hyper- disk with the protection mode set to NONE, but I always have. 3) File Transfer Errors. I experienced MANY transfer errors using Hyperdisk! These were mostly CRC errors. These were experienced with uploads and downloads. Many of my users quit calling because when they downloaded a file, it wouldn't unzip. The ones they uploaded would fail Catscan's integrity check. This didn't happen with every file but a large percentage of them. I believe it has to do with how many users are on at once or processor activity. Some say a large cache (over 2 megs) will cause this. All I know is the second I switched to a cacheing controller the problem went away!! 4) Even loading Hyperdisk "High", it uses a little memory below 640k. This was critical for me because I use Desqview on a Multi-node system. You need all you can get here so you can have the largest windows available for the BBS. Especially the way WC! and the 3rd party utils are starting to "hog" memory! 5) To gain great speed with it you must run it with Staged Writes. By doing this you MUST flush the cache and disable it before powering down or re-booting. If you don't, you run a GREAT risk of corupting any of your data files! I did this a few times, what a nightmare! But, after a couple times of this you learn to flush it almost instinctively but it prays on your mind . Running it in Staged Writes is where most of your troubles begin. But it is needed to gain the best speed. Why Hyperdisk? Well it's free for one thing and not expensive when you register it It's a decent program and does speed up your system even without Stages Writes. I have and still do recommend it to anybody if they don't have the bucks for a controller. But only until they do. If you want to try out Hyperdisk you can Freq the Magic name HYPERDISK from here and you'll always get the latest version. Why a Cacheing Controller? 1) It eliminates all the trouble I listed with Hyperdisk. 2) They're more expensive than a software cache but not that much. 3) You can add up to 16 Megs of cacheing ram via SIMMS. 4) You plug them in and forget about 'em. 5) You can run 2 of them at the same time. Up to 14 SCSI drives or 8 IDE Drives, or 4 IDE Drives and 7 SCSI drives all in the same machine! 6) They come with Floppy controllers and a Floppy Tape controller built in. They come with Serial and Para ports if you want. 7) Mail tossing speed will at least double, plus it speeds up your entire system. They also reduce repeated disk accessing by more than half, reducing wear and tear on your hard drives. This also extends thier life! Ok, what about performance? Well, all I can tell you is what my experience is. I run a 386/40 with a 64k cache (motherboard). Desqview 2.42 and Qemm 6.03. Wildcat 3.55M with two 14.4 nodes and one local plus whatever else . I want to run at the time. A Fujitsu 520Meg IDE and a WD 212Meg IDE The 520 is 12ms, I think. The WD is 15ms. Tosser is set to "Notify" and "Purge". Protection mode set to NONE. Mail is tossed on the Incomming node and is not "Spawned". I ran Hyperdisk with a 4 meg cache and 5 sec staged writes. With Wildmail 2.04 I got a respectable 130 - 140 mpm. Gomail wasn't out at that time. Without the staged writes I got something less than 90 mpm. I threw in a cacheing controller and added four 1 meg SIMMS. Speed was averaging about 110 mpm. I tried Gomail and I'm getting a good 120 mpm. Now this isn't as good as Hyperdisk with staged writes but it's better than it without staged writes. Plus I don't have all the headaches either! I lost some downlinks recently and I don't have a lot of "passthru's" like I used to have either. In case you weren't aware of it, passthrus will speed up your average mpm considerably! So what I'm telling you is if I was still tossing the same mail bundles I used to, the speed would probably be much closer to the hyperdisk speed. Ok, you have my attention. What about price and where do I get these suckers? About 2 months ago I decided to get a dealers licence to supply myself with lower cost computer parts, like a few of my friends do. I also had plans to offer a few parts now and then to friends and my BBS users as a service to them. In doing this I could make a coupla bucks per sale. This would help me with the huge expence I have running this BBS and help them by selling it cheaper than anyone else. A few weeks later I heard about these controllers so I decided to order one from a distributor. I dropped it in and the rest is history. I'm so sold on these that I thought I would let the rest of my Wildcat counterparts know about them and offer these to them at a real low price. I'll list the prices I have right now but I am trying to contact the manufacturer to get them direct. Anyway, here we go............ ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: All Prices Do Not include Shipping Model Type #HD's Floppys Tape Serial Para Price ------------------------------------------------------- DC 99M IDE 2 2 N N N 119.00 DC100M IDE 2 2 N 2 1 149.00 DC2030 IDE 2 2 Y N N 129.00 DC2031 IDE 4 2 Y N N 149.00 DC2032 IDE 4 2 Y 2 1 169.00 DC2040 SCSI 7 2 N N N 219.00 DC4030VL IDE 4 2 Y N N 225.00 LOCAL BUS VESA COMPATABLE DC3030 IDE 4 2 Y N N AVAILABLE EISA BUS Mid JAN. DC3040 SCSI 7 SCSI-1 2 Y N N AVAILABLE EISA BUS 2 SCSI-2 Mid JAN. All controllers carry a 2 year warranty. These are manufactured by Promise Technology Inc. New type and models are comming out almost weekly. Because of this I cannot guarantee prices but I would expect they would drop, not increase. As I said earlier, I'm trying to get these from the manufacturer and I may get them much cheaper soon. Whether you get one from a friend, your local dealer, myself, or whoever, I highly recommend them for the SysOp who wants the best. If you are interest or would like more info such as exact specs on these, contact me......... Voice 313-379-4547 BBS 313-379-4729 or Netmail 1:2380/400 14.4 USR HST/v32bis BBS 313-379-2664 or Netmail 1:2380/401 14.4 v32bis John Lyon ps: I will update this file as anything changes. Just Freq CACHE any time to get an updated list. BTW, I am a Wildcat Distribution Net. Site. I have many WC files here and they're all available for Freq. You can also Freq my filelists buy FREQing FILES.