An apparatus and method for a scalable network attached storage system. The apparatus includes a scalable network attached storage system, the network attached storage system including one or more termination nodes, one or more file server nodes for maintaining file systems, one or more disk controller nodes for accessing storage disks respectively, and a switching fabric coupling the one or more termination node, file server nodes, and disk controller nodes. The one or more termination nodes, file server nodes and disk controller nodes can be scaled as needed to meet user demands. The method includes receiving a connection request from a client, selecting a termination node among the plurality of termination nodes to establish a connection with the client in response to the connection request based on a predetermined metric, terminating at the selected termination node a command request received from the client during the connection by extracting a file handle defined by the command request, forwarding the command request to a selected file server node among a plurality of file server nodes interpreting the command request at the selected file server node and accessing an appropriate disk controller node among a plurality of disk controller nodes, and accessing disk storage through the appropriate disk controller node and serving the accessed data to the client. The number of termination nodes, file server nodes, and disk controller nodes are scalable as needed to meet user demands.