Patent ID: 8898423
Filing Date: 2014-11-25
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. In a disk drive system comprising a magnetic medium and non-volatile memory, a method of caching data received from a host system, the method comprising: maintaining a cache table having a plurality of entries, each entry corresponding to one or more host data units that are cached, or are candidates for being cached, in the non-volatile memory, each entry comprising a segment identification indicating a cache type of the one or more host data units; maintaining a segment control list specifying a plurality of cache types and one or more cache table entries associated with each of the plurality of cache types; using the segment control list, selecting a cache table entry associated with a particular cache type, the entry having a metric suitable for being cached in the non-volatile memory, wherein the metric reflects a predicted performance benefit of caching the one or more host data units associated with the selected entry in the non-volatile memory; and storing the one or more host data units associated with the selected entry in the non-volatile memory.