According to one embodiment, filtering cached input/output (I/O) data includes receiving a current I/O transfer that is part of an ongoing data stream, and evaluating whether to filter ongoing data streams once the data stream reaches are particular size threshold. The transfer rate for the ongoing data stream may be calculated and a determination is made as to whether the transfer rate is greater than a throughput associated with a target storage device. The current I/O transfer is cached if the transfer rate is greater than the throughput associated with a target storage device, or is not cached if the transfer rate is not greater than the throughput associated with a target storage device. The current I/O transfer may be also cached if the transfer rate is less than or equal to the throughput associated with the target storage device and the I/O transfer is a write I/O transfer.