Adam, there's a bug in your version of the patch "efi_disk_cache.patch":
+#define GRUB_DISK_CACHE_SIZE 1024
+#define GRUB_DISK_CACHE_BITS 8 <---- SHOULD BE "10"
You may have been misled by Manoj's suggestion of trying BITS==8... But note that 2^BITS must be kept == SIZE which isn't the case in your version of the patch.
Anyway, I have determined that BITS==10, SIZE==1024 is a good value performance-wise (and the blog poster suggests even higher: BITS==13). I recommend that we stick with BITS==10, SIZE==1024.
Adam, there's a bug in your version of the patch "efi_disk_ cache.patch" :
+#define GRUB_DISK_ CACHE_SIZE 1024 CACHE_BITS 8 <---- SHOULD BE "10"
+#define GRUB_DISK_
You may have been misled by Manoj's suggestion of trying BITS==8... But note that 2^BITS must be kept == SIZE which isn't the case in your version of the patch.
Anyway, I have determined that BITS==10, SIZE==1024 is a good value performance-wise (and the blog poster suggests even higher: BITS==13). I recommend that we stick with BITS==10, SIZE==1024.