Patent ID: 7475142

Claim:
A scalable network attached storage system comprising: one or more termination nodes; one or more file server nodes in communication with the one or more termination nodes for maintaining file systems, wherein the file server nodes are together responsible for a plurality of trees of the file systems, wherein each of the plurality of trees is a server message block (SMB) share; and a switching fabric coupling the one or more termination nodes and file server nodes, wherein the one or more termination nodes and file server nodes can be added to or deleted from the scalable network attached storage system as needed, wherein the one or more termination nodes are configured to communicate with users via CIFS protocol; wherein the one or more termination nodes are configured to (i) receive a Server Message Block (SMB) TREE CONNECT message from a user, which TREE CONNECT message identifies a share to be accessed by the user, (ii) determine which file server node is responsible for a tree identified in the TREE CONNECT message, (iii) send the TREE CONNECT message to the file server node determined to be responsible, and (iv) send a response to the user, which response identifies a Tid to be used by the user to identify said share.