Method and apparatus for pre-fetching metadata

A storage system, comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• one or more processors that are operatively coupled to the memory, the one or more processors being configured to perform the operations of:
• storing, in an aging queue, a frontend (FE) track that is associated with at least one write request;
• waiting until an age of the FE track is greater than an aging time of the aging queue, and placing the FE track in a write commit queue after the age of the FE tracks has become greater than the aging time of the aging queue;
• while waiting until the age of the FE track is greater than the aging time of the aging queue, evaluating a condition that is based on an aging time of the queue, an age of the FE track, and a fall-through time of a cache, and prefetching, into the cache, backend (BE) metadata that is associated with the write request based on an outcome of the evaluation of the condition;
• and
• completing the write request after the FE track has been placed in the write commit queue, the write request being completed based on the BE metadata.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing one or more processor-executable instructions, which, when executed by at least one processor of a storage system, cause the at least one processor to perform the operations of:

• storing, in an aging queue, a frontend (FE) track that is associated with at least one write request;
• waiting until an age of the FE track is greater than an aging time of the aging queue, and placing the FE track in a write commit queue after the age of the FE tracks has become greater than the aging time of the aging queue;
• while waiting until the age of the FE track is greater than the aging time of the aging queue, evaluating a condition that is based on an aging time of the queue, an age of the FE track, and a fall-through time of a cache, and prefetching, into the cache, backend (BE) metadata that is associated with the write request based on an outcome of the evaluation of the condition;
• and
• completing the write request after the FE track has been placed in the write commit queue, the write request being completed based on the BE metadata.