when you exit km ( or any browser) it copies the memory cache to the disk cache. also, it copies memory cache to disk cache whenever memory starts getting full.
the default settings of most browsers will compare an identifier of each image file to all of the ones in cache ( thats a crc for those techinical people) it can tell if the file has changed since the last fetch, if so, it gets a fresh copy otherwise, it just loads from cache if it is available. you can change this behavior in the kmeleon prefs. luckily, kmeleon also has a force refresh command ( rt click your refresh button) that removes all doubt, as it forces fresh copies regardless of the page's requested expiration. this is mostly used by me during web development. kmeleon does not seem to cache the webpage itself in the default settings.
Note that flash videos aren't cached at all by the browser, we are talking images here. Other types of video, audio, pdf's, and other formats are downloaded into your temp directory, so they could be called "cached", but they are not part of browser cache since they are handled by plugins or other programs.
even though images are cached, each one must still be checked to see if it changed, this causes a lot of traffic on pages with thousands of small images, even if they are cached. iirc, the check is performed once a day when the image is requested.
if you have a lot of disk chatter, i would expect that you are not using your ramdisk even though you think you are. i don't even have a ramdiskm but with maxed out memory(64M
and disk cache ( 75M) it barely makes a noise. If you have any reasonable amount of memory, max the memory cache. and 75 M is nothing on a disk, so do that as well. i doubt you will need a ramdisk. note that you can not put more than 75M, even on a ramdisk so 512 is a big waste. if your ramdisk is so big that it uses up too much memory, the OS will start to use the swap file ( the exact opposite of a RAM disk) to move your overflowing memory onto disk. this causes A LOT of disk activity. i think that's what you got.
to summarize, max out your mem and disk cache. forget about ramdisk. get the fasterfox plugin and increase your http sockets if you have a broadband connection. also go to speedguide.com and make sure your receive window is tuned to your connection speed. if this is screwed up, it can make a big difference. good luck.
oh yeah, almost forgot, I wouldn't use your real name and address. Just post your first name or get a stupid handle like the rest of us. you're making us feel paranoid by being so trusting on the net.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2010 09:54AM by snuz2.