Servers no longer know about pathnames, only fids and volumes, which serve as a means to do a quick lookup of data. Each server has a Volume Location Database. Vnodes include pointers to file status data. Volumes are used to create collections of files. These are connected at mount points, but are flexible.
Volumes make the file system easier to administrate.
Lightweight processes used in single address space on server. Status changes are visible immediately after they have completed. CPU still the bottleneck, although performance is much improved. This makes for simpler management, caching across reboots, and follows studies that say most files are read in entirety. Also, AFS requires a local disk of a size equal to or larger in size than the largest file used.