What does LargeSystemCache:0 do?

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

We resell and build plugins for a multiplatform software product.
The installation tool for the Windows NT version, by default,
sets LargeSystemCache to zero. It lets you override this, but
presents the following information:

"If the Registry key LargeSystemCache is NONzero, the disk cache is given
priority over the process working set. This will reduce performance by
causing paging."

We will, of course, follow the vendor's advice, but we would like a
better understanding of what's really going on. Obviously if the
vendor's explanation were to be taken at face value, LargeSystemCache
should ALWAYS be set to zero. Presumably setting it nonzero must have
some benefit in some situations! We would like to understand better
just what our vendor wants users to trade off, and why.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith
dpbs...@world.std.com

[David Dillard]

Generally speaking:

- You want a large system cache on a file server and with some application servers.
- You don't want a large system cache on a workstation.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
David Dillard da...@microdes.com
Principal Software Engineer
Micro Design International, Inc. http://www.microdes.com