diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 1e5e1f5..0342b07 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 - Optimized cache a little bit which saves ~200 bytes binary size in example
 - Add heap-backed cache types when the `alloc` feature is active.
   This gets rid of some (const) generics and allows you to create a cache with dynamic length.
+- Added checks to avoid trying to write or read zero bytes of data to/from the flash
 
 This release is 'disk'-compatible with 6.0
 
diff --git a/src/item.rs b/src/item.rs
index 3553cc4..fc3ce77 100644
--- a/src/item.rs
+++ b/src/item.rs
@@ -141,14 +141,16 @@ impl ItemHeader {
 
                 let mut retry = false;
                 loop {
-                    flash
-                        .read(data_address, &mut data_buffer[..read_len])
-                        .await
-                        .map_err(|e| Error::Storage {
-                            value: e,
-                            #[cfg(feature = "_test")]
-                            backtrace: std::backtrace::Backtrace::capture(),
-                        })?;
+                    if read_len != 0 {
+                        flash
+                            .read(data_address, &mut data_buffer[..read_len])
+                            .await
+                            .map_err(|e| Error::Storage {
+                                value: e,
+                                #[cfg(feature = "_test")]
+                                backtrace: std::backtrace::Backtrace::capture(),
+                            })?;
+                    }
 
                     let data = &data_buffer[..self.length as usize];
                     let data_crc = adapted_crc32(data);
@@ -290,14 +292,16 @@ impl<'d> Item<'d> {
         };
 
         let data_address = ItemHeader::data_address::<S>(address);
-        flash
-            .write(data_address, data_block)
-            .await
-            .map_err(|e| Error::Storage {
-                value: e,
-                #[cfg(feature = "_test")]
-                backtrace: std::backtrace::Backtrace::capture(),
-            })?;
+        if !data_block.is_empty() {
+            flash
+                .write(data_address, data_block)
+                .await
+                .map_err(|e| Error::Storage {
+                    value: e,
+                    #[cfg(feature = "_test")]
+                    backtrace: std::backtrace::Backtrace::capture(),
+                })?;
+        }
 
         if !data_left.is_empty() {
             let mut buffer = AlignedBuf([0; MAX_WORD_SIZE]);
diff --git a/src/mock_flash.rs b/src/mock_flash.rs
index cb224fc..abc7f02 100644
--- a/src/mock_flash.rs
+++ b/src/mock_flash.rs
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ impl<const PAGES: usize, const BYTES_PER_WORD: usize, const PAGE_WORDS: usize>
 
     fn validate_operation(offset: u32, length: usize) -> Result<Range<usize>, MockFlashError> {
         let offset = offset as usize;
-        if (offset % Self::READ_SIZE) != 0 {
+        if (offset % Self::READ_SIZE) != 0 || length == 0 || length % BYTES_PER_WORD != 0 {
             Err(MockFlashError::NotAligned)
         } else if offset > Self::CAPACITY_BYTES || offset + length > Self::CAPACITY_BYTES {
             Err(MockFlashError::OutOfBounds)