PRELOADING DATA IN A CACHE MEMORY ACCORDING TO USER-SPECIFIED PRELOAD CRITERIA

摘要

An apparatus and method for caching data in a storage device (26) of a computer system (10). A relatively high-speed, intermediate-volume storage device (25) is operated as a user-configurable cache. Requests to access a mass storage device (46) such as a disk or tape (26, 28) are intercepted by a device driver (32) that compares the access request against a directory (51) of the contents of the user-configurable cache (25). If the user-configurable cache contains the data sought to be accessed, the access request is carried out in the user-configurable cache instead of being forwarded to the device driver for the target mass storage device (46). Because the user-cache is implemented using memory having a dramatically shorter access time than most mechanical mass storage devices, the access request is fulfilled much more quickly than if the originally intended mass storage device was accessed. Data is preloaded and responsively cached in the user-configurable cache memory based on user preferences.