The population of data to be admitted into secondary data storage cache of a data storage system is controlled by determining heat metrics of data of the data storage system. If candidate data is submitted for admission into the secondary cache, data is selected to tentatively be evicted from the secondary cache; candidate data provided to the secondary data storage cache is rejected if its heat metric is less than the heat metric of the tentatively evicted data; and candidate data submitted for admission to the secondary data storage cache is admitted if its heat metric is equal to or greater than the heat metric of the tentatively evicted data.