A system comprising a plurality of storage devices (115 1, 115 L, 222, 224, 308) and a plurality of computing devices (104 1, 104 N, 201) communicatively coupled to each other and to the one or more storage devices (115 1, 115 L, 308) via a network (102, 118), wherein a plurality of failure resilient address spaces (518 1, 518 2, 518 A) are distributed across the plurality of storage devices (115 1, 115 L, 222, 224, 308) such that each of the plurality of failure resilient address spaces (518 1, 518 2, 518 A) spans more than one storage device of the plurality of storage devices, and the plurality of computing devices (104 1, 104 N, 201) is operable to maintain metadata that maps each failure resilient address space to one of the plurality of computing devices (104 1, 104 N, 201), the system characterized by: the plurality of computing devices (104 1, 104 N, 201) comprising a plurality of virtual file system nodes (206 1... 206 6), the metadata being divided into a plurality of metadata shards; each metadata shard, of the plurality of metadata shards, being maintained in a bucket (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, D1, D2) of a plurality of buckets (A, B, C, D), and each VFS node (206 1), of the plurality of VFS nodes (206 1... 206 6), being responsible for one or more buckets; the VFS nodes that can run a particular bucket agree upon a leader of the particular bucket; and in the event a bucket leader determines the load imbalance can be improved, the system is operable to split and redistribute buckets and/or change bucket leadership. the plurality of computing devices (104 1, 104 N, 201) is operable to maintain metadata that maps each failure resilient address space to one of the plurality of computing devices (104 1, 104 N, 201), the system characterized by: the plurality of computing devices (104 1, 104 N, 201) comprising a plurality of virtual file system nodes (206 1... 206 6), the metadata being divided into a plurality of metadata shards; each metadata shard, of the plurality of metadata shards, being maintained in a bucket (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, D1, D2) of a plurality of buckets (A, B, C, D), and each VFS node (206 1), of the plurality of VFS nodes (206 1... 206 6), being responsible for one or more buckets; the VFS nodes that can run a particular bucket agree upon a leader of the particular bucket; and in the event a bucket leader determines the load imbalance can be improved, the system is operable to split and redistribute buckets and/or change bucket leadership. the plurality of computing devices (104 1, 104 N, 201) comprising a plurality of virtual file system nodes (206 1... 206 6), the metadata being divided into a plurality of metadata shards; each metadata shard, of the plurality of metadata shards, being maintained in a bucket (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, D1, D2) of a plurality of buckets (A, B, C, D), and each VFS node (206 1), of the plurality of VFS nodes (206 1... 206 6), being responsible for one or more buckets; the VFS nodes that can run a particular bucket agree upon a leader of the particular bucket; and in the event a bucket leader determines the load imbalance can be improved, the system is operable to split and redistribute buckets and/or change bucket leadership.