A storage system includes four storage engines, each storage engine including two compute nodes. Eight point-to-point connections are used to interconnect pairs of compute nodes on different storage engines, such that each compute node is connected to exactly two other compute nodes of the storage system. Atomic operations can be initiated by any compute node on any other compute node. Atomic operations received by a compute node on one of the point-to-point connections will be forwarded on the other point-to-point connection if the atomic operation is not directed to the compute node. During normal operation, atomic operations on a given compute node are performed on a host adapter associated with the compute node. Upon failure of the host adapter associated with the compute node, atomic operations may be performed on the compute node using the host adapter of the other compute node of the storage engine.