An apparatus and method for accessing a first local mass storage device or a second local mass storage device in a fault-tolerant server. In one embodiment, the fault-tolerant server establishes communication between a first computing element and a first local mass storage device. The fault-tolerant server also establishes communications between a second computing element and a second local mass storage device. In one embodiment, the first computing element and the second computing element issue substantially similar instruction streams to one of the local mass storage devices.