Specifications

EPC-33/34 Hardware Reference
F-10
F
F
When SMARTDrive is installed, you should be aware of the following:
• Because of the cache write-behind strategy, your data may still be in
the process of being written several seconds after the writing
application has terminated. In this case, your computer may respond
sluggishly to commands for a while, because it is still busy with
previous operations.
• In case a write-fault occurs, SMARTDrive provides no option other
than to retry the operation. If a retry does not succeed, there is no other
course but to reboot.
TrueFFS and Compression
TrueFFS media may be compressed by any compression programs that handle
DOS disks (Double-Space, Stacker, Double-Disk, Super-Stor and others).
The write speed of these tools may be lower than expected for the following
reason: most compression programs operate by allocating a Compressed
Volume File (CVF) spanning nearly the entire disk. Since TrueFFS write
performance is influenced by the amount of available space on the medium,
the (false) appearance of the medium being full will degrade its performance.
To achieve adequate write speed with compression, it is recommended that
you first reformat the TrueFFS medium with a usage factor of 90%, i.e. use
the parameter /USE=90 in TFORMAT. This compares to the default
TFORMAT value of 99%.
TrueFFS and Memory Managers
TrueFFS usually accesses the Flash medium through a memory window in
upper DOS memory (segment range A000 to FFFF). Memory managers such
as Microsoft's EMM386, MemMaker and Quarterdeck's QEMM manage this
memory range and may use it for other purposes.
A memory manager may be installed and be unaware of the use made by
TrueFFS of a memory window. It may map it to RAM and thus disconnect
TrueFFS access to its Flash medium. Should this happen, TrueFFS will issue
the error NON-DOS DISK or UNRECOGNIZED MEDIA TYPE when it is
used.
To remedy this problem, exclude the memory window used by TrueFFS from
the range of memory handled by the memory manager.