miss-ratio-curve · research · also MRC, cache miss curve

Miss-ratio curve

A miss-ratio curve relates cache capacity to the fraction of requests that miss under a specified workload, policy and initial state.

For equal-size demand-admitted LRU, count cold accesses plus reuses whose zero-based distinct-entry distance is at least the capacity, then divide by all requests. A one-based stack-distance formulation instead counts distances exceeding capacity. [1]

In the cold-start trace 0,1,2,0,0,2,1, capacities 1, 2 and 3 give 6/7, 5/7 and 3/7 misses. These are constructed counts, not device-speed predictions. [2]

A trace starting mid-workload does not reveal the initial cache contents. Preserve the observation layer, history and time window; a whole-run aggregate can hide changing locality. [1]

Relations

related

Reuse distance, Least recently used replacement, Cache inclusion property, Belady anomaly

Citations

1. Wires et al. Characterizing Storage Workloads with Counter Stacks. OSDI 2014, sections 2 and 3.2. (accessed 2026-10-19)
2. Hesela. LRU sizing from distinct-entry reuse distances; constructed examples. (accessed 2026-10-19)

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