Well the metadata I'm referring to is the metadata required to locate a file: mappings from directory structure, filename, possibly permissions / ownership to t

Well the metadata I'm referring to is the metadata required to locate a file: mappings from directory structure, filename, possibly permissions / ownership to the blocks and replicas distributed across a cluster. If you get to the point where you need start locating metadata because it might also be arbtirarily distributed you now need meta-metadata. And I'm sure you can see how complex that's going to get :)