Patent ID: 7584264

Claim:
A data storage and retrieval system, comprising: a data processing server configured to receive incoming data and to transmit the data for storage; a plurality of data storage servers each coupled to one or more data storage units and configured to receive transmitted data for writing to the one or more data storage units, and configured to read data from the one or more data storage units; a data retrieval server coupled to one or more of the plurality of data storage servers and configured to retrieve data read by the one or more data storage servers from the one or more data storage units; and a plurality of process modules each associated with one of the plurality of data storage servers, at least two of the process modules each configured to write a portion of the data to a corresponding data storage unit, each of the at least two process modules further configured to transmit an acknowledgment associated with the corresponding data storage unit upon the writing of the portion of data in the corresponding data storage unit, wherein a first of the at least two data storage servers associated with a first data storage unit is coupled to a second data storage server associated with a second data storage unit, and wherein the process module in the first data storage server is configured to transmit an acknowledgment associated with each of the first and second data storage servers in response to: (i) receiving an acknowledgment from the process module in the second data storage server based on the writing of the data portion in the second data storage unit, and (ii) the writing of the data portion in the first data storage unit.