Physical storage devices may be managed for spontaneous de-staging from a cache, for example, by determining a background task threshold (UBTT), and controlling one or more physical storage devices to use the UBTT instead of the VBTT in determining when to enter background task mode. The determined UBTT may be less than the VBTT, which may cause the physical storage device to enter into background task mode earlier, which means that background tasks like garbage collection and write leveling may be performed more frequently. An ability to turn on and turn off management of physical storage devices for spontaneous de-staging of a cache may be provided. It may be desirable to turn off physical storage device management for spontaneous de-staging, for example, during peak workload hours, to prevent physical storage devices from entering into background task mode more frequently during certain times.