A method, non-transitory computer readable medium and storage controller computing device that receives a read request from a client device. Data corresponding to the read request is retrieved from a flash cache comprising local flash memory. The data is returned to the client device in response to the read request. A determination is made when the data is stored in a flash pool. The flash pool comprises a plurality of solid state drives (SSDs). The data is inserted into the flash pool, when the determining indicates that the data is not stored in the flash pool. With this technology, a flash pool is populated based on hits in a flash cache. Accordingly, flash cache is utilized to provide low latency reads while the most important data is preserved in the flash pool to be used by another storage controller computing device in the event of a failover.