A storage system according to certain embodiments includes a client-side repository (CSR). The CSR may communicate with a client at a higher data transfer rate than the rate used for communication between the client and secondary storage. During copy operations, for instance, some or all of the data being backed up or otherwise copied to secondary storage is stored in the CSR. During restore operations, copies of the data stored in the CSR is accessed from the CSR instead of from secondary storage, improving performance. Remaining data blocks not stored in the CSR can be restored from secondary storage.