High performance caching architecture for data storage systems

In a disk drive system comprising a magnetic medium and non-volatile memory, a method of caching data received from a host system, the method comprising:

• maintaining a cache table having a plurality of entries, each entry corresponding to one or more host data units that are cached, or are candidates for being cached, in the non-volatile memory, each entry associated with one or more logical addresses used by the host system;
• receiving a write data command from the host system, the write data command associated with a first plurality of logical addresses used by the host system and a first plurality of host data units corresponding to the first plurality of logical addresses;
• determining whether the cache table contains a cache table entry associated with at least one logical address of the first plurality of logical addresses, wherein a plurality of cache table entries is associated with a second plurality of logical addresses corresponding to a second plurality of host data units;
• and
• in response to determining that the cache table does not contain the cache table entry associated with at least one logical address of the first plurality of logical addresses, allocating a new cache table entry and associating the new cache table entry with the first plurality of logical addresses and a cache type.

A disk drive system comprising:

• a magnetic medium configured to store data;
• a non-volatile memory module configured to store data;
• and
• a controller configured to:
• maintain a cache table having a plurality of entries, each entry corresponding to one or more host data units that are cached, or are candidates for being cached, in the non-volatile memory, each entry comprising a segment identification indicating a cache type of the one or more host data units;
• and
• maintain a segment control list specifying a plurality of cache types and one or more cache table entries associated with each of the plurality of cache types.