US Patent 10430385 Limited deduplication scope for distributed file systems

A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for limited deduplication scope on a distributed file system is discussed. A write request is received from a client at the metadata server (“MDS”), where the write request comprises a data object identifier and a preferred object store identifier. The MDS determines whether a preferred object store associated with the preferred object store identifier contains a copy of a data object associated with the data object identifier. A write URL comprising the data object identifier and a object store location associated with the preferred object store is transmitted to the client when the preferred object store does not contain the copy of the data object.