A method and apparatus are described for assigning mastership of nodes to data blocks. A method involves connecting each session of a plurality of sessions to a particular node of a cluster of nodes based on services associated with the plurality of sessions. Each session of the plurality of sessions is associated with a respective service of a plurality of services. The method also involves collecting service-based access statistics aggregated by service and ranges of data block addresses. Each range corresponds to one or more contiguous subrange of data block addresses. The method further involves assigning mastership of the nodes to the data blocks having addresses within said ranges of data block addresses based on services associated with the nodes and the service-based access statistics.