Question

Give two reasons why caches are useful. What problems do they solve? What problems do they cause? If a cache can be made as large as the device for which it is caching (for instance, a cache as large as a disk), why not make it that large and eliminate the device?

Answer 1

Cache memory retrieve data from main memory for CPU execution of computing.

Cache memory stores data to be executed on a first in first out list to the CPU.

Step-by-step explanation:

The cache memory is a volatile memory in a CPU that retrieves data from the main memory for the CPU to reduce processing time and increase speed and performance. To more the cache memory the faster the CPU.

The cache memory can only be a few megabytes of data in size and a located in the CPU. The increase in the size of the cache memory to that of a storage like the hard disk, would increase the size and heating of the CPU.

Answer 2

1. Caches are relatively fast than main memory, so getting data from the cache is faster than getting it from the main or secondary memory

2. Caches are also useful when two components need to exchange data, transfers are faster when using cache and the transfer can aslo be done without having to access the main memory

Step-by-step explanation:

As stated above, caches speed up transfer time between components. This means that the component recieving data froma nother component does not have to wait as long as it would have waited if the data was coming from the main memory.

The problems caused include incosistency and cache misses

Making caches as large as disks would be ineffective because caches are volatile, they hold temporary data while we want data on disks to be persistent. Also, cache is a faster memory and they tend to be more expensive