Techniques for implementing a data queuing and/or caching scheme for optimizing data storage are described herein. Data write requests are received and processed by at least queuing the requests and/or associated data for recording upon one or more data storage devices. The order within the queue, as well as the order in which the queued requests are serviced, may, in some embodiments, be optimized. The stored data are verified by determining the position of a write pointer implemented by the one or more data storage devices relative to the contents and/or position of the queued data requests.