Patent ID: 8775742

Claim:
A method for caching file data stored in a storage device, wherein the file data is used by an application running on a computing system having a processor, a file system residing in memory, and a storage controller, comprising: determining file data required by the application running on the processor and generating file access data; determining physical file mapping information related to the file access data on the storage device, wherein the physical file mapping information including logical block information, associated physical block information and next block hints needed for caching portions of the file data for each subsequent logical block, wherein a next block hint stored in a current logical block comprises physical address of a next logical block; and generating read commands from the storage controller to read-ahead file data stored in the storage device using the logical block information, associated physical block information and the next block hints needed for caching portions of the file data for each subsequent logical block, wherein the next block hint stored in the current logical block is read while reading the file data from the current logical block.