Patent ID: 7590798

Claim:
A system for responding to file system requests having file IDs comprising V, a volume identifier specifying the file system being accessed, and R, an integer, specifying the file within the file system being accessed comprising: D disk elements in which files are stored, where D is greater than or equal to 2 and is an integer; a switching fabric having a first switching element and a second switching element, each of which are connected to each of the D disk elements to route requests to a corresponding disk element based on the file system request's ID, the switching fabric processing higher priority requests before lower priority requests; N network elements, each of which is connected to each of the switching elements of the switching fabric, each network element having a mapping function that for every value of V, specifies one or more elements from the set D that store the data specified by volume V, where N is greater than or equal to 2 and is an integer and N +D is greater than or equal to 4, which receives the requests and causes either the first or second switching element of the switching fabric to route the requests by their file ID according to the mapping function, the switching fabric connected between the disk elements and the network elements; and a remote procedure call mechanism which forms a unique connection between a network element and a disk element through either the first or second switching element of the switch fabric at a certain priority through which requests and responses between the disk element and network element flow, the remote procedure call mechanism comprising a plurality of connections, each connection connecting a single network element with a single disk element.