Patent ID: 8296283

Claim:
A system, comprising: a plurality of computer systems communicatively coupled to one another via one or more networks and configured to form an overlay network for a distributed hash table file system, one or more of the plurality of computer systems being to: determine, based on a distributed hash table associated with the distributed hash table file system, a key associated with a first item of content, of a plurality of items of content, to be stored via the plurality of computer systems, determine, for the first item of content, a first value that corresponds to the key, determine, for each of the plurality of computer systems, a second value that corresponds to an identifier of each of the plurality of computer systems, determine, for each of the plurality of computer systems, a third value that corresponds to a difference between the first value and the second value, identify, based on the determined third values, a first group of the plurality of computer systems, a second group of the plurality of computer systems, and a third group of the plurality of computer systems, the third values determined for the first group being less than the third values determined for the second group, and the third values determined for the second group being less than the third values determined for the third group, copy the first item of content to one or more of the plurality of computer systems of the first group, and remove copies of the first item of content from one or more of the plurality of computer systems of the third group.