A method performed by an object storage system comprising a hierarchical arrangement of multiple hardware elements arranged in the form of a nodal tree, in which respective higher level nodes of the nodal tree are configured to subsume lower level leaf nodes directly beneath the respective higher level nodes to form respective non-overlapping and standalone branches of further nodal trees under the nodal tree, and each node at a nodal level of the nodal tree is preceded with a dedicated hashing function configured to receive one or more weight factors that describe performance characteristics of lower level leaf nodes directly beneath said node, and the storage capacity of a higher level node corresponds to the combined storage capacity of lower level leaf nodes directly beneath said higher level node, the method comprising: receiving, at a first hardware element in the hierarchical arrangement, a request that is associated with an object, the first hardware element configured as a gateway of the object storage system, wherein the request is configured to include the name of the object; performing, by the first hardware element, a first hashing function on the name of the object to generate a first hash, which identifies a second hardware element directly beneath the first hardware element in the hierarchical arrangement, wherein the first hash incorporates one or more weight factors that describe performance characteristics of hardware elements directly beneath the first hardware element; sending, by the first hardware element, the request to the second hardware element; performing, by the second hardware element, a second hashing function on the name of the object to generate a second hash, which identifies a third hardware element directly beneath the second hardware element in the hierarchical arrangement, wherein the second hash incorporates one or more weight factors that describe performance characteristics of hardware elements directly beneath the second hardware element; and sending, by the second hardware element, the request to the third hardware element to advance the request towards being serviced by the object storage system, wherein in response to a change in storage capacity in a node, the weight factor associated with said node is changed, and the weight factors associated with the remaining nodes in the object storage system are configured to remain unchanged. receiving, at a first hardware element in the hierarchical arrangement, a request that is associated with an object, the first hardware element configured as a gateway of the object storage system, wherein the request is configured to include the name of the object; performing, by the first hardware element, a first hashing function on the name of the object to generate a first hash, which identifies a second hardware element directly beneath the first hardware element in the hierarchical arrangement, wherein the first hash incorporates one or more weight factors that describe performance characteristics of hardware elements directly beneath the first hardware element; sending, by the first hardware element, the request to the second hardware element; performing, by the second hardware element, a second hashing function on the name of the object to generate a second hash, which identifies a third hardware element directly beneath the second hardware element in the hierarchical arrangement, wherein the second hash incorporates one or more weight factors that describe performance characteristics of hardware elements directly beneath the second hardware element; and sending, by the second hardware element, the request to the third hardware element to advance the request towards being serviced by the object storage system, wherein in response to a change in storage capacity in a node, the weight factor associated with said node is changed, and the weight factors associated with the remaining nodes in the object storage system are configured to remain unchanged.