Embodiments are described for prioritizing input/output (I/O) operations dispatched to a solid-state device (SSD) cache in a network, by defining a maximum write I/O operation size for writing data to the SSD cache, splitting large write I/O operations into smaller write I/O operations, each with a size less than the maximum write I/O operation size, interleaving cache read I/O operations in between the smaller write I/O operations, and performing the cache read I/O operations and the smaller write I/O operations in an order created by the interleaving. The network may comprise a deduplication backup system storing data to storage media including the SSD cache.