What determines the extent of data cached by a FlexCache volume?

• A. It is determined by the blocks and directory entries that have been accessed
• B. It is identical to the entire origin namespace
• C. It is randomly selected
• D. It is automatically populated at first access with the full origin data

Answer: (A)

What gets cached in a FlexCache volume is driven by what the clients actually access. The cache stores the data blocks and the associated directory entries that have been touched by requests. When a client reads a file, the needed blocks are brought into the cache from the origin and the corresponding metadata is cached as well. Subsequent requests for the same data can be served directly from the cache, which helps reduce latency and origin bandwidth usage. The cached set grows with used data up to the configured cache size, and items can be evicted according to the cache policy when space is needed. So the extent of cached data is determined by the blocks and directory entries that have been accessed, not by loading the entire origin namespace, not by random selection, and not by unconditional prepopulation of the full origin data.