System and method for high-speed substitute cache

A cache process operating in a computer having an operating system, a kernel mode portion, and a user mode portion, the process comprising:

• a direct block caching driver for creating a cache;
• and
• a cache memory expansion process, the memory expansion process comprising:
• a memory table creation process for creating, in the user mode portion of the computer, at least one memory table comprising a set of virtual memory addresses;
• and
• a handle passing process for providing to the cache driver a handle enabling the direct block caching driver to access the at least one memory table when allocating memory to the cache.

A method of caching data in a computer comprising:

• enabling a cache with respect to at least one selected disk volume, said cache characterized by caching parameters;
• displaying cache performance data on a user interface;
• and
• adjusting at least one of the caching parameters in response to user input.

A method of caching data in a computer comprising:

• enabling a cache with respect to at least one selected disk volume, said cache characterized by caching parameters including a cache size and cache page size;
• running an application program on said computer;
• and
• adjusting at least one of the caching parameters in response to user input while the application program continues to run.

A method of caching data in a computer comprising:

• enabling a cache with respect to a selected disk volume, said cache characterized by caching parameters including a cache size and cache page size;
• running an application program on said computer;
• intercepting an input/output request stream;
• accessing said cache to satisfy a request of the request stream;
• and
• disabling said cache while the application continues to run on said computer wherein, in response to an instruction to disable, at least one request to write blocks to the selected disk volume are generated to flush dirty blocks from said cache.