Patent ID: 7693954

Claim:
A system for data storage, the system comprising: a switch node; a meta-data server; a plurality of storage servers having at least one respective data storage device; and a scalable interconnect to couple the switch node, the meta-data server, and the storage servers, wherein at least one of the switch node, the meta-data server and the storage servers includes a hierarchical storage manager (HSM), and when information is received at the switch node, the HSM presents the information substantially simultaneously to the storage servers for storage at the respective data storage devices and the information is deleted from the storage devices after respective predetermined time durations, wherein the storage capacity of the storage devices is predetermined to an amount of data expected to be stored by a user during the respective predetermined time duration, and the storage capacity of each successively increasing time duration storage device is within a preferred range of twice the size to fifty times the size of the previous time duration storage device, and a most preferred range of five times the size to twenty-five times the size of the previous time duration storage device.