Subtitles of the Movie

When it comes right down to it, we can have the greatest speed in a computer if we can keep all of the memory just waiting to be used through the L2 Cache or L1 Cache and eventually to the Processor. In other words if we can keep the memory loaded up and ready to go, then we can have the greatest speed. But there is a problem with that, and that is if we get too much memory loaded up and the computer recognizes that, that can actually decrease our speed - creating a bottleneck. Where we got too much memory that is ready to be processed and everything isn't happening fast enough. So buffering fools the computer so that we can have more memory than the computer is worried about. So in other words, if we use buffered memory modules, we can have more memory modules in the same system. And therefore, have more memory available to the computer but not confuse the system or create a bottleneck. This is also called Registering when we are referring to SDRAM, because SDRAM as we remember synchronizes itself to the System Bus. So it registers with that Bus as the memory is needed, and all the other memory is basically hidden from the system so that the system does not become overwhelmed with the amount of data that is to be transferred or that is to be worked on. So Buffering or Registering allow more memory modules to be supported by a Server. It's typically not a technique that is used in workstations, typically only used in Servers. And it can only be used in a Server if the Server was designed or if the system board was designed for that particular purpose. So again, it goes back to the manufacturer and whether the manufacturer set it up so that you can use buffered modules. In some cases, it's up to the Administrator as to whether to use buffered modules or unbuffered modules in the same board. But you can't use both: we can't combine unbuffered and buffered memory in the same board - and in fact, that's a good test question. So it's important to understand that buffered modules, and the capability of using buffered memory, allows us to increase the amount of memory that we can support in a Server. But it's only a factor if all of the other components are available so that that amount of memory would be needed. In other words, we've got to have faster Processor, we've got to have the faster Cache before we need the buffered memory - so again there is a balance. And another factor that needs to stay in balance is our disk subsystem, which includes all of the hard drives and hard drive controllers. Because that is where all of the written information that we are going to use is going to come from, and that is where we are going to store information that we process. So in our next section we will take a look at the disk subsystem.