The described technology is generally directed towards mapping mapped storage clusters to resources of a real storage cluster in a way that provides high performance. In one aspect, the mapped storage clusters are divided into logical columns, with each logical column corresponding to a mapped node, and having a column height corresponding to a number of storage resources (e.g., disks) managed by that mapped node. The columns are logically positioned within a logical rectangle having dimensions of the real storage cluster. For example, the logical columns can be selected based on column height, and placed in the logical rectangle in a top-down, back and forth pattern. Once logically positioned, the logical columns in the logical rectangle establish the mapping (e.g., embodied in a mapping table) that results in high performance.