SmartDrive (or SMARTDRV) is a
disk caching program shipped with
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...
versions 4.01 through 6.22 and
Windows 3.0 through
Windows 3.11.
It improves
data transfer rates by storing frequently accessed data in
random-access memory
Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working data and machine code. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost t ...
(RAM).
Early versions of SmartDrive were loaded through a
device driver named .
Versions 4.0 and later were loaded through an
executable file named , which could be run at user's discretion or at boot time via .
However, also includes a
double-buffering driver that should be loaded through .
Version 4.0 also introduced
32-bit disk access and could reduce its footprint in
conventional memory (the first 640 kilobytes of memory which was critical to
DOS) by running in
upper memory area (the 384 kilobytes of memory located beyond the conventional memory).
A cloaked variant of SmartDrive utilizing the
Helix Cloaking API was available from
Helix Software
Helix Software Company was a New York City based software company founded in October 1986. The company developed software tools and utilities for DOS and Windows. In 1993, Helix licensed some of its memory management technology to Microsoft for ...
. On
Intel 80386 processors, it could run in
protected mode to reduce its footprint in conventional memory.
Microsoft suggests SmartDrive to be used when installing
Windows 2000 or
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...
from MS-DOS to reduce installation time.
SmartDrive has been superseded by VCache, which was introduced in
Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0.
Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows ...
and carried over to
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufactu ...
,
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released ...
/
Windows 98 SE and
Windows Me. The main advantage of VCache over SmartDrive is its ability to adjust cache size dynamically. However, it tended to take too much RAM in Windows 95; this aspect was improved in Windows 98.
See also
*
FASTOPEN
*
List of DOS commands
This article presents a list of commands used by DOS operating systems, especially as used on x86-based IBM PC compatibles (PCs). Other DOS operating systems are not part of the scope of this list.
In DOS, many standard system commands were p ...
*
32-bit file access
References
{{Reflist
Hard disk software
DOS software