According to at least one embodiment, a method comprises receiving a session trace log identifying a plurality of sessions accessing streaming media files from a media server. The method further comprises deriving from the session trace log a segment trace log that identifies for each of a plurality of time intervals the segments of the streaming media files accessed, and using the segment trace log to develop an analytical cache performance model. According to at least one embodiment, a method comprises receiving workload information representing client accesses of streaming media files from a media server, and using an analytical cache performance model to compute a cache hit ratio for the media server under the received workload.