Ref: 08720020
Title: Buffers Controlled by NETADMIN "Amount of Memory" Field
Date: 8/17/90

Copyright 3Com Corporation, 1991.  All rights reserved.

Question:  In the NETADMIN display, on the Set Server Configuration
screen (press Alt-C-O), is a field labelled "Amount of Memory (K)".
My references state that this field

  specifies the amount of memory for the server buffers.  This amount
  should be greater than the amount of memory specified for caching.
  (This can be changed only when the server is not started.)

What is the expected behavior, if any, of setting the value of
this field LESS THAN the amount of memory reserved for caching?
What server buffers does this field control?


Answer:  Your references are incorrect.  There is no coupling between
the value of this field to the amount of memory reserved for disk
caching.

The "Amount of Memory" value is calculated from three LANMAN.INI
parameters--MAXWRKCACHE, NUMWORKBUF, and SIZWORKBUF--from the
[Workstation] section of the LANMAN.INI file.  If this number is
changed, LAN Manager will reverse the process, and recalculate
these three numbers from the new "Amount of Memory" value.  It will
no longer use the values in LANMAN.INI, and you could conceivably
find that the new numbers are inappropriate for your purposes.

Following are descriptions of the MAXWRKCACHE, NUMWORKBUF, and SIZWORKBUF
parameters contained in the [Wordstation] section of the LANMAN.INI file.


MAXWRKCACHE=
   Minimum = 0, Maximum = 640, Default = 64

Sets the size limit, in kilobytes, of the workstation's
large-transfer buffers.  Increase this number if you use your
workstation for file-intensive projects, like copying files, and
need better performance.  This number must be a multiple of 64
kilobytes.


NUMWORKBUF=
   Minimum = 3 (2 + WRKNETS=), Maximum = 50, Default = 15

Sets the number of buffers the workstation can use to store data
for transmission, thus increasing local area network efficiency.
Each buffer takes up memory, so do not allocate more than you need.
The product of this value and the value of (SIZWORKBUF + 268) must
be less than 65,535.


SIZWORKBUF=
   Minimum = 1024, Maximum = 16384, Default = 4096

Sets the size for workstation buffers, in bytes.  Increase this
number if you need to handle large chunks of data, like database
records, across the local area network.  The value of this entry
should be a multiple of 512.  Also, this value should be the same
for every workstation on the local area network and should be the
same as the value of the SIZREQBUF= used by servers.  See the
NUMWORKBUF= description for information on the formula used to
determine the maximum size of SIZWORKBUF=.