Patent ID: 8650365

Claim:
A method for maintaining data in a data storage system, the data storage system including a plurality of data storage nodes, the method comprising: monitoring the plurality of data storage nodes; detecting a condition in the data storage system, the condition indicating that data stored on at least one of the plurality of data storage nodes should be replicated within the data storage system; initiating a replication process based on detecting the condition, wherein the replication process comprises sending at least one of a multicast or unicast request to at least one data storage node of the plurality of data storage nodes, said request including a respective priority flag indicative of a relative priority for the replication of the data; receiving a first request from at least one data storage node of the plurality of data storage nodes, wherein the first request is at least one of a multicast or unicast request and includes a first priority flag; receiving a second request from at least one data storage node of the plurality of data storage nodes, wherein the second request is at least one of a multicast or unicast request and includes a second priority flag; ordering the requests in a plurality of priority queues based on the first and second priority flags, wherein requests that include the first priority flag are included in a higher priority queue and requests that include the second priority flag are included in a lower priority queue; and concurrently processing the plurality of priority queues at defined frequencies, wherein requests in the higher priority queue are processed with a first frequency, requests in the lower priority queue are processed with a second frequency, and the first frequency is greater than the second frequency.