Patent ID: 8898206

Claim:
A method for constructing a directory path to a specified path component, comprising: iteratively traversing a hierarchical directory structure to populate a cache data structure, of a local storage server node, with one or more entries corresponding to one or more path components until an inode of a specified path component is reached, an entry comprising an inode number of a target inode and an inode number of an immediate parent of the target inode, the cache data structure comprising a first entry derived from data of a first storage server node and a second entry derived from data of a second storage server node, the first storage server node and the second storage server node remote from the local storage server node, the iteratively traversing comprising performing a first traversal and zero or more other traversals until the inode of the specified path component is reached, the performing a first traversal comprising: identifying the target inode; responsive to determining that the inode number of the immediate parent of the target inode is not cached in the cache data structure: identifying a storage server that hosts a content metadata volume for the target inode; invoking the storage server to identify the inode number of the immediate parent of the target inode; receiving the inode number of the immediate parent of the target inode and the inode number of the target inode; and populating the cache data structure with the inode number of the target inode and the inode number of the immediate parent of the target inode; and constructing a directory path from the target inode to the specified path component based upon one or more entries within the cache data structure without accessing a storage server node remote from the local storage server node.