Described are techniques for processing I/O operations. A read operation is received to read first data from a first location. It is determined whether the read operation is a read miss and whether non-location metadata for the first location is stored in cache. Responsive to determining that the read operation is a read miss and that the non-location metadata for the first location is not stored in cache, first processing is performed that includes issuing concurrently a first read request to read the first data from physical storage and a second read request to read the non-location metadata for the first location from physical storage.