Patent ID: 7401161

Claim:
A storage system, comprising: a plurality of nodes, wherein different ones of said plurality of nodes perform different functional roles in the storage system; wherein a first portion of said plurality of nodes are storage nodes each comprising one or more mass storage devices; wherein a second portion of said plurality of nodes are one or more host interface nodes each configured to provide an interface for the storage system to one or more host computers; and an interconnection fabric configured for connecting each one of said plurality of nodes to every other one of said plurality of nodes; wherein the interconnection fabric comprises a plurality of point-to-point connections between said plurality of nodes, wherein said interconnection fabric is configured to provide a plurality of independent communication paths between each one of said plurality of nodes to every other one of said plurality of nodes, wherein the interconnection fabric comprises at least one of a torus interconnection fabric, a mesh interconnection fabric, a hypercube interconnection fabric, a multiple path butterfly interconnection fabric, a complete graph interconnection fabric, a hex network interconnection fabric, or a fat tree interconnection fabric.