Patent ID: 8140762

Claim:
A system comprising: a host configured to generate a plurality of input/output (IO) requests; a drive array comprising (i) a solid state device and (ii) a plurality of hard disk drives (HDDs), said solid state device comprising (a) a write cache region and (b) a read cache region, wherein (A) said drive array stores and/or retrieves data in response to said input/output requests, (B) said read cache region is a data mirror of a portion of said write cache region and (C) said data mirror between said read cache region and said write cache region is synchronized at a time after said data is written to said write cache region to avoid latency overhead when accessing said read cache region; and an abstract layer configured to (i) receive said plurality of IO requests, (ii) process said IO requests, and (iii) map said plurality of IO requests to said write cache region and said read cache region.