Aspects and features of the present disclosure can prefetch metadata in the nodes of a cloud-based storage system. At a node that stores at least one shard of a data object, metadata for the data object can be fetched from node storage and saved in a node cache prior to processing a read request for the shard. The metadata can be cached in response to a prefetch request transmitted to the node, for example, by the gateway that shards data objects for the storage system. Thus, the metadata can be available in the node cache when the read request for the data shard arrives later, reducing delays in accessing data object shards from the storage nodes of the system.