Efficient distribution of large directories

A method, comprising:

• receiving a request to access a file in a storage system;
• performing a hash calculation on a file name and on an inode number of a directory, wherein a result of the hash calculation identifies one of a plurality of owners as having the ownership of the file, and identifies which storage node of a plurality of storage nodes has the one of the plurality of owners;
• and
• accessing the file through the one of the plurality of owners.

A system, comprising:

• a plurality of storage nodes coupled as a storage cluster;
• at least a portion of the plurality of storage nodes configured to have at least one authority, each authority having ownership of a subset of files of the storage cluster, wherein ownership of differing subsets of a plurality of files of a directory is distributed among differing authorities in differing storage nodes;
• each of the plurality of storage nodes configured to perform a hash calculation on an inode number of the directory and on a file name, to obtain a result of the hash calculation that indicates an authority and which one of the plurality of storage nodes hag the authority resides, the authority identified among a plurality of authorities;
• and
• each of the plurality of storage nodes configured to determine which authority in which of the plurality of storage nodes has ownership of a file that is in the directory and has the file name.