AVOIDING CLIENT TIMEOUTS IN A DISTRIBUTED FILESYSTEM

The disclosed embodiments disclose techniques that facilitate of avoiding client timeouts in a distributed filesystem. Multiple cloud controllers collectively manage distributed filesystem data that is stored in one or more cloud storage systems; the cloud controllers ensure data consistency for the stored data, and each cloud controller caches portions of the distributed filesystem in a local storage pool. During operation, a cloud controller receives from a client system a request for a data block in a target file that is stored in the distributed filesystem. Although the cloud controller is already caching the requested data block, the cloud controller delays transmission of the cached data block; this additional delay gives the cloud controller more time to access uncached data blocks for the target file from a cloud storage system, thereby ensuring that subsequent requests of such data blocks do not exceed a timeout interval on the client system.