1. A method comprising: gathering metadata associated with respective blocks of data; assigning an initial batch of the blocks to nodes of a file system based on the gathered metadata; and selectively assigning unassigned blocks to one or more of the nodes, the selective assignment comprising: constructing a linear regression model based on node data; and for each node, determining a value based on the linear regression model, wherein each value is associated with a predicted load corresponding to a new assignment of one or more unassigned blocks.