A high speed data queuing and retrieval system includes, in a lower tier,
multiple storage devices for storing items for subsequent use by a
requesting process, and multiple select devices for retrieving selected
items in a pre-specified order from a corresponding storage device
according to a requesting process, and, in an upper tier, multiple locally
accessible storage devices for temporarily caching those items selected
from the lower tier, and a select device for retrieving the selected items
from the local storage device and feeding the requested items to the
requesting process in a predefined sequence according to the request. The
retrieval of the requested items from the local storage device is
performed independent from and at a greater speed relative to the
temporary caching of the selected items in the local storage device.