Patent ID: 8200723

Claim:
A method of execution by a processor, comprising: receiving, by the processor, a request to access a file stored in a remote one of physical storage volumes, the request specifying a location of the file by a global path that comprises a first sequence of components followed by a second sequence of components with a last component in the second sequence being a filename of the file, wherein the first sequence of components are from a synthetic file system structure of a unified file system, and a second sequence of components are from a physical file system structure of the unified file system, and wherein the synthetic file system structure is defined by first metadata stored in at least one user-mode database and the physical file system structure contains second metadata that describes data stored on the physical storage volumes, wherein the physical storage volumes are located on multiple storage servers and are accessible via network connections through a single mounted physical storage volume that is different from the remote physical storage volume; requesting, for each of the components in the first sequence, information about the component from the at least one user-mode database, wherein a last component in the first sequence is a transition node, which is a component containing information linking the synthetic file system structure and the physical file system structure; receiving volume and network connection information of the transition node from the at least one user-mode database; connecting to the remote physical storage volume via a network connection that is identified using the volume and network connection information; requesting information about the transition node from the physical file system structure; and requesting, for each of the components in the second sequence, information about the component from the physical file system structure through the single mounted physical storage volume to determine the location of the file in the remote physical storage volume.