Configuring cache drives
If you install Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server in cache mode or integrated mode, then as part of the setup process, you will be prompted to select cache drives. ISA Server sets aside space to store cached data on the selected drive.
For background information on the caching process, see How caching works and Cache content files.
Cache requirements and recommendations
You must use an NTFS partition for caching and the drive must be a local drive. Typically, the best performance is obtained if you use a drive different from the one on which the main ISA Server system and the Windows 2000 operating system are installed. It is further recommended that you format the drive before using it for caching.
If you want to use the ISA Server caching feature, you must install ISA Server on a computer that has at least one partition formatted as an NTFS volume. If your current server disk volume uses FAT partitions, you can convert these partitions to NTFS by using Convert, which is included with Windows 2000 Server. Convert does not overwrite the data on the disk. For more information on using Convert, type convert /? at a command prompt.
You select the disk drives that are available for caching during ISA Server installation. If your system is limited to a single disk drive, select a hard disk of sufficient size to make the cache as large as possible. Cache size can be increased later by adding more disk volumes.
By default, the setup process searches for the largest NTFS partition and sets a default cache size of 100 megabytes (MB) if there are at least 150 MB available. When configuring the cache drives, you must allocate at least one drive and 5 MB for caching. However, it is recommended that you allocate at least 100 MB and add 0.5 MB for each Web Proxy client, rounded up to the nearest full megabyte.
You might also want to change the default for the ISA Server cache to your fastest hard disk drive, preferably a small computer system interface (SCSI) drive that has adequate free space.
Windows 2000 allows you to format a drive without assigning a letter. However, ISA Server caching does not recognize these drives.
Configuring size and location
For each server, you can configure the size and location of the cache used by the Web Proxy service. It is recommended that you allocate a large cache, since objects are dropped from the cache when it reaches its capacity.
You can also configure the percentage of total memory to use for caching. For configuration instructions, see Configure percentage of available memory to use for caching.
When you modify cache properties, the Web Proxy service is stopped and restarted.
For configuration instructions, see Configure cache size on a server.