PreCaching for HDDs (and SSDs)
Filed under: Storage - Hard Drives
I've finally gotten around to writing up a small pre-caching application for those people still using HDD's. Such as schools, or any organisation or individual that automatically boots Personal Computers and leaves them unattended for a brief period prior to use, usually by the public, and is not happy with the responsiveness of the machines - even 20 minutes or more after boot up.
This application will also help those still using mechanical Hard Disk Drives by enabling the end user to pre-cache small files on their HDD while not reading ridiculously large files that would force small files out of the OS Disk Cache.
The idea is to increase the performance when small files are accessed (not just those that make up the Start Menu) by having the Windows OS read their contents into it's own Disk Cache system.
The application traverses the file system of the C:\ drive looking for files under a certain size (64KB currently) and reads them, causing them to be cached by the Windows Operating System Disk Cache.
The application runs with the same permissions as the logged in user and only performs I/O Reads. So some files/folders will not be cached. (Usually a very small number).
Current version: 1.0.0.5
Last update date: 6th Jan 2013
Download: http://scottdbowen.id.au/PreCacher/PreCacher.exe
Filed under: Storage - Hard Drives
I've finally gotten around to writing up a small pre-caching application for those people still using HDD's. Such as schools, or any organisation or individual that automatically boots Personal Computers and leaves them unattended for a brief period prior to use, usually by the public, and is not happy with the responsiveness of the machines - even 20 minutes or more after boot up.
This application will also help those still using mechanical Hard Disk Drives by enabling the end user to pre-cache small files on their HDD while not reading ridiculously large files that would force small files out of the OS Disk Cache.
The idea is to increase the performance when small files are accessed (not just those that make up the Start Menu) by having the Windows OS read their contents into it's own Disk Cache system.
The application traverses the file system of the C:\ drive looking for files under a certain size (64KB currently) and reads them, causing them to be cached by the Windows Operating System Disk Cache.
The application runs with the same permissions as the logged in user and only performs I/O Reads. So some files/folders will not be cached. (Usually a very small number).
Current version: 1.0.0.5
Last update date: 6th Jan 2013
Download: http://scottdbowen.id.au/PreCacher/PreCacher.exe