Read messages are grouped by a plurality of unique sequence identifications (IDs), where each of the sequence IDs corresponds to a specific read sequence, consisting of all read and read-ahead requests related to a specific storage segment that is being read sequentially by a thread of execution in a client application. The storage system uses the sequence id value in order to identify and filter read-ahead messages that are obsolete when received by the storage system, as the client application has already moved to read a different storage segment. Basically, a message is discarded when its sequence id value is less recent than the most recent value already seen by the storage system. The sequence IDs are used by the storage system to determine corresponding read-ahead data to be loaded into a read-ahead cache.