BUFFERS

Purpose:    Sets the number of buffers allocated in RAM to buffer disk
            operations and I/O operations with other types of block devices.

Syntax:     BUFFERS = <XX> [,YY] [/X] [/L|/H]

            XX - number of buffers, from 8 to 99;
            YY - not used by PTS-DOS, left for compatibility with other
                 DOS versions;
            /X - not used by PTS-DOS, left for compatibility with other
                 DOS versions;
            /L - instructs the System to allocate buffers only in the
                 lower (up to 640+) memory;
            /H - enables usage of HMA for allocating buffers.

By default: BUFFERS = 8 /H

Note:

     A disk buffer is a block of memory which is used for buffering I/O
operations with block-type devices, that can transfer data only in blocks of
fixed size.

     For applications such as word processors, a number between 10 and 20 is
quite sufficient for the system. If you are going to use the additional
caching program, then the default setting will provide normal performance.
Increasing the number of buffers by one, takes up additional 530 bytes of
memory if the DOS is not loaded into the high memory, but if it is, you
should look through the SYSGEN command description for explanation of the
strategy of allocating DOS in memory.

     You should try various settings of BUFFERS to find out an optimal I/O
speed/available memory ratio.