Windows 95 CD-ROM cache Great CD-ROM speed-up... sometimes Caching
software a solution for a limited audience
By Jeffrey Gordon Angus
Publication Date: May 27, 1996 (Vol. 18, Issue 22)
If your Windows 95 users are telling you they need better CD-ROM speed, Quarterdeck Corp.'s new SpeedyROM 1.0 utility may be
a better solution than buying new, higher speed CD-ROM drives. But it may not be.
The program is intelligently designed and well-rendered. After a simple installation, you tell SpeedyROM the hard drive on which you
want to set up a cache and the size you want it to be. The documentation recommends 20MB as a minimum, but a slider control
gives you the opportunity to select as large a size as is available. The documentation says the utility works with compressed drives
as well, but I didn't test this.
You also optimize the cache for the hardware you have in your machine, specifying a rotation speed (single-, dual-, or six-speed); if
you specify something different from your hardware, the utility figures it out over time and resets itself. This is a great feature that
frees you from having to install on every desktop. Even if novice users install it at the wrong speed, they'll eventually get the speed
boost.
The cache on the hard drive then holds frequently accessed data from various CD-ROMs. This speeds access to the information in
the cache, because even the most ordinary hard drive outperforms the most expensive contemporary CD-ROM drive. Cleverly,
SpeedyROM also catalogs multiple discs, so it knows where in its cache to look for data.
But SpeedyROM won't meet everybody's CD-ROM speed needs. It's a Windows 95-only product and requires a 32-bit driver.
(Getting Windows 95 to recognize the drivers can be a problem.)
SpeedyROM also works with Windows 3.x and DOS programs, but only under Windows 95 -- losing the game-playing market and
some multimedia users.
SpeedyROM worked well with corporate databases in a Pareto distribution (about 20 percent of the records are the ones called
about 80 percent of the time).
For databases with more random distribution, the advantages were slight.
SpeedyROM also worked extremely well with Windows 95-native multimedia discs. On a 66-MHz 486 with 16MB of RAM and a
dual-speed CD-ROM drive, Microsoft Corp.'s Cinemania 96 usually takes 14 seconds to load. It took that long to load the first time
SpeedyROM was activated, but after that it only took about 6 seconds, even when several other titles were loaded before it was
reloaded.
For Windows 95 users with lots of spare disk space who usually run multimedia titles or databases with Pareto hit patterns,
SpeedyROM is a big winner. For others, there are fewer gains to be had.
Jeffrey Gordon Angus is a business consultant and systems analyst for the DataWorks Ltd., in Seattle. His Internet address is
jeff_angus@infoworld.com.
THE BOTTOM LINE: GOOD
SpeedyROM 1.0
SpeedyROM is basically a CD-ROM cache with some spiffy technology that speeds access in specific circumstances.
Pros: Intelligent self-adjusting behavior; good layering that supports novice and advanced users at the same time.
Cons: Doesn't support 16-bit CD-ROM drivers or DOS-mode programs.
Quarterdeck Corp., Marina del Rey, Calif.; (310) 309-3700; info@quarter deck.com; quarterdeck.com.
Price: $39.95
Platform: Windows 95.
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