According to a method of cache management in a data storage system including a write cache and bulk storage media, a storage controller of the data storage system caches, in the write cache, write data of write input/output operations (IOPs) received at the storage controller. In response to a first performance-related metric for the data storage system satisfying a first threshold, the storage controller decreases a percentage of write IOPs for which write data is cached in the write cache of the data storage system and increases a percentage of write IOPs for which write data is stored directly in the bulk storage media in lieu of the write cache. In response to a second performance-related metric for the data storage system satisfying a second threshold, the storage controller increases the percentage of write IOPs for which write data is cached in the write cache of the data storage system.