Partition tolerance in cluster membership management

Techniques are disclosed for managing a cluster of computing nodes following a division of the cluster into at least a first and second partition, where the cluster aggregates local storage resources of the nodes to provide an object store, and objects stored in the object store are divided into data components stored across the nodes. In accordance with one method, it is determined that a majority of data components comprising a first object are stored within nodes in the first partition. It is determined that a majority of data components comprising a second object are stored within nodes in the second partition. In one aspect, configuration objects are permitted to be performed on the first object in the first partition while denying access to the first object from the second partition, and on the second object in the second partition while denying access to the second object from the first partition. In another aspect, I/O operations are permitted upon determining that that a quorum number of the component objects contain a full copy of the data of the first virtual disk object.