Patent ID: 8281022

Claim:
Apparatus for providing high-performance, scaleable data storage services to a client from a plurality of storage devices, comprising: an access interface module which receives from the client data storage requests, each including a data object to be stored and a data object identifier that identifies that data object and, in response to each storage request and based on a workload and on relative demands placed on subsets of the plurality of storage devices instead of a physical location in the plurality of storage devices, dynamically selects a subset of the plurality of storage devices in which the data is stored so that data corresponding to the same data object identifier can be transferred to different physical storage device locations from request to request in order to dynamically distribute the workload across the plurality of storage devices; and a switch fabric for temporarily connecting the access interface module to the selected subset of the plurality of storage devices so that the data can be transferred to the selected subset of storage devices.