A computer-implemented method for efficiently accessing a secondary storage in highly available clustered storage environment may include receiving a client-initiated data request at a secondary server coupled to a secondary storage; determining request information about the client-initiated data request; determining with the secondary server whether to process the client-initiated data request on the secondary storage based on the determined request information; and responsive to determining that the secondary server should process the client-initiated data request, processing the client-initiated data request by the secondary server to retrieve data from the secondary storage.