Patent ID: 8171228

Claim:
A method of operating a cache, said cache containing a plurality of entries, each to store a corresponding one of a plurality of items, said method comprising: computing a hit score and a non-idle score for each of said plurality of items, said hit score reflecting a relative number of hits to the item compared to all of said plurality of items, said non-idle score reflecting a relative recent idle time of the item compared to all of said plurality of items; calculating a relative rank for each of said plurality of items, said relative rank reflecting relative suitability of removal of the item based on the corresponding hit score and the non-idle score; identifying a set of items as being suitable for replacement, each item being identified as being suitable based on a comparison of the relative rank with a threshold, said set of items being a subset of said plurality of items; and using the entries corresponding to said set of items for replacement when storing new data items in said cache.