1. A computer program product for use with a peripheral storage apparatus including at least one data storage element and a data cache, comprising: a computer program storage medium readable by a digital processing apparatus; and a program means on the program storage medium and including instructions executable by the digital processing apparatus for causing the digital processing apparatus to copy data stored on the data storage element to the data cache by: after an initial power-up or reset of the peripheral storage apparatus and a host computer associated with the peripheral storage apparatus, receiving a read command from the host computer for transferring to the host computer a data record of a program stored on the data storage element; in response to receiving, generating and storing in the peripheral storage apparatus a prefetch table representative of a storage location and length of the data record requested by the initial read command; after a subsequent power-on or reset of the peripheral storage apparatus, and during a second power-on or reset of the host computer, accessing by the peripheral storage apparatus the prefetch table to read the data record into the data cache; and in response to subsequent read commands from the host computer, determining whether records requested by the subsequent read commands are stored in the data cache, and if so, communicating the records from the data cache to the host computer, and otherwise communicating the records from the data storage element to the host computer.