According to one embodiment, a data recording apparatus includes an input unit to which a commands is input, a disk-shaped recording medium, a nonvolatile memory which serves as a cache memory for the disk-shaped recording medium, and a control unit which records the data recorded in the nonvolatile memory onto the disk-shaped recording medium on the basis of a command to turn off a function of using the nonvolatile memory as a cache memory for the disk-shaped recording medium, which is input to the input unit.