ICC-NCQ priority and deadline information in conjunction with an estimation of command access time that is specific to SMR drives are used improve command queue optimization. Estimated completion times are determined based on the internal subcommands that the drive has to execute to complete the host read or write command taking into account whether all or part of the data will be or already is stored in write-twice cache, E-region and/or I-region. The command processor selects the next command for execution based on calculated access times with adjusted priority based on the specified deadline for the command. As the deadline approaches, the priority of the command increases. For high priority data writes as specified by a host, an optimized storage plan is selected as appropriate using the “write-twice cache” (WTC) region, E-region or I-region.