Cacheschijven

Cacheschijven, often referred to as cache drives or flash caches, are a type of solid-state drive (SSD) used in conjunction with larger, slower storage devices like traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) or even other SSDs. Their primary purpose is to accelerate data access by storing frequently used data in their faster solid-state memory.

The concept behind a cacheschijf is to act as a high-speed buffer. When data is requested, the system first checks the cacheschijf. If the data is present in the cache (a cache hit), it can be retrieved much faster than if it had to be read from the slower primary storage. If the data is not found (a cache miss), it is read from the primary storage and then copied to the cacheschijf for future access. This process significantly improves the perceived performance of the entire storage system.

Cacheschijven are commonly found in server environments and high-performance computing setups where rapid data retrieval is critical. They can be implemented in hardware, where a dedicated caching controller manages the process, or in software, where an operating system or specialized utility handles the caching logic. The size of a cacheschijf is typically smaller than the primary storage it accelerates, as it only needs to hold the most frequently accessed data. Technologies like tiered storage and intelligent caching algorithms are employed to optimize which data resides on the faster cacheschijf.