When does ONTAP invalidate cached data blocks in a FlexCache volume?

• A. When the cache consistency timer expires
• B. When a Snapshot copy is deleted from the origin
• C. When the FlexCache volume is resized
• D. When a block is modified at the origin

Answer: (D)

FlexCache keeps data coherent by invalidating cached blocks as soon as the origin updates them. When a block on the origin is modified, ONTAP marks the corresponding cached copy as invalid so that the next read fetches the fresh data from the origin and repopulates the cache. This ensures you don’t get stale data from the cache while still benefiting from caching performance.

Other scenarios don’t trigger invalidation because they don’t change the actual data content: a consistency timer influences timing behavior, but not the immediate invalidation; deleting a Snapshot or resizing the cache volume doesn’t modify origin data, so they don’t cause the cached blocks to be invalidated.