SMARTDrive (smartdrv) is a utility that can be loaded in the autoexec.bat to create a disk cache in conventional memory or extended memory. This utility is often used boot disks as it can greatly increase the speed of how MS-DOS accesses disk drives.

Availability

Smartdrv is an external command that is available for the following Microsoft operating systems as smartdrv.exe.

Those who are using Microsoft Windows instead of MS-DOS should not load this line in the autoexec.bat or while Windows is running. Users running Microsoft Windows 95 or 98 cannot load this command unless they are in an MS-DOS shell.

  • Availability

  • Smartdrv syntax

  • Smartdrv examples

  • MS-DOS 6.0 and above

  • Windows 3.x

  • Windows 95

  • Windows 98

Smartdrv syntax

Installs and configures the SMARTDrives disk-caching utility.

SMARTDRV [/X] [[drive[+|-]]…] [/U] [/C | /R] [/F | /N] [/L] [/V | /Q | /S] [InitCacheSize [WinCacheSize]] [/E:ElementSize] [/B:BufferSize]

Smartdrv examples

c:\dos\smartdrv.exe /x

This command is to be placed in the autoexec.bat. It loads the smartdrv utility into memory, allows access to SMARTDrive, and disables the write-behind caching for all drives.

c:\dos\smartdrv.exe C 1024 512

Specifies a size to be used with smartdrv. When a cache size is not specified, smartdrv uses all extended or expanded memory.