A storage array uses paged metadata. Each storage director has access to a plurality of object storage systems which describe locations of paged metadata in backing storage. Each object storage system includes different types of inodes which describe objects in backing storage. The object storage systems are used to locate and relocate metadata for loading into global memory, and creation and deletion of objects. An object storage system may be selected based on factors including ratio of different inode types, locality of object usage and anticipated object activity level.