Can I speed up my CD-ROM by using a cache?

There are several programs that cache information from the CD-ROM onto your hard disk. Since magnetic discs are often more than 10 times faster than a CD-ROM, this can result in dramatic improvements under some circumstances.

Most of the programs cache the directory information, so you can traverse subdirectories quickly. They also cache the most recently accessed blocks of data. So if you use the same files over and over, or access the same records in a database, your CD-ROM will seem much faster. But when you access the information for the first time, it will be just as slow as ever.

SpeedCache+ from Future Systems has been recommended as a pretty good caching program.

Future Systems, Inc
0420 South 500 East
Bluffton, IN 46714
(219) 824-4963

On the Macintosh a prescanning (Directory, file atrributes, icons, etc) cache to accelerate the Mac with CD-ROMs exists from two companies SpeedyCD 1.22 and FWB CD-ROM ToolKit 1.0. FWB seems much faster than SpeedyCD and can prescan any type of CD-ROM volumes (ProDos, Mac HFS, MS DOS, ISO9660, PhotoCD etc.) It prescans in the background.

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