Buffered indexing for a computer's array such as a cache is used to synchronize parent entries with children and allow background invalidation (that is, suspending the invalidation should a new request of the array come in, resuming the invalidation after the request is satisfied) of the child entries. A method for synchronization uses linking of (multiple) entries in lower-level tables to single entries in a higher-level table with a buffered index value. This index value increments each time the higher-level entry is replaced or invalidated (and thus disassociated with its corresponding lower-level entries). Multiple sets of index values are maintained, so that when one set is exhausted, processing can continue with one of the other sets. All corresponding lower-level entries with index values from the old (dirty) set can then be scrubbed (invalidated) while new entries are built from the new (clean) set. Scrubbing can take place in the background, and can be suspended and resumed at any time so as to not impact request service times of the tables.