A persistent caching system is provided. The persistent caching system includes a storage system having a caching server for storing data, and a client for accessing the data through a network. The caching server is configured to store the data in a number of virtual memory blocks. The virtual memory blocks refer to an associated memory-mapped file in a file system of the caching server. The caching server is configured to export addresses of the virtual memory blocks to the client. The client is configured to access at least some of the virtual memory blocks through RDMA using the exported addresses. The caching server is configured to page virtual memory blocks being accessed by one or more clients through RDMA to and/or from the memory-mapped files associated with the accessed virtual memory blocks.