Outperforming LRU with an Adaptive Replacement Cache Algorithm

  • Authors:
  • Nimrod Megiddo;Dharmendra S. Modha

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • Computer
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

The policy of choice for managing cache memory has been to discard the least-recently-used item. LRU has consistently outperformed other policies by virtue of its simplicity and low overhead. However, an adaptive replacement cache algorithm offers a low-overhead alternative that shows substantial performance gains over LRU. ARC's online adaptation continually balances between a workload's recency and frequency features, eliminating the need for the workload-specific pretuning that plagued many previous proposals to improve LRU. The algorithm has the additional advantage of being scan-resistant so that one-time sequential requests can pass through without polluting the cache.