How to: Caching and Memory
Like a computer's memory, a cache is a compact, fast-performing memory that stores data in a hierarchy of levels, starting at level one, and progressing from there sequentially. They are labeled as L1, L2, L3, and so on. A cache also gets written if requested, such as when there has been an update and new content needs to be saved to the cache, replacing the older content that was saved.

No matter whether the cache is read or written, it's done one block at a time. Each block also has a tag that includes the location where the data was stored in the cache. When data is requested from the cache, a search occurs through the tags to find the specific content that's needed in level one (L1) of the memory. If the correct data isn't found, more searches are conducted in L2.

If the data isn't found there, searches are continued in L3, then L4, and so on until it has been found, then, it's read and loaded. If the data isn't found in the cache at all, then it's written into it for quick retrieval the next time.