1. A method for a storage server within an object storage system to process a put transaction for a new version of an object associated with a new version manifest chunk, wherein the storage server contains an old version of the object associated with an old version manifest chunk, the method comprising: validating the new version manifest chunk; saving the new version manifest chunk to persistent storage; comparing a unique version identifier for the new version manifest with a unique version identifier for the old version manifest stored in a local name index and updating a local name index for the object's name if the unique version identifier for the new version manifest is more current than the unique version identifier for the old version manifest stored in the local name index; creating an entry in the storage server's local transaction log recording the existence of the new version manifest; sending an acknowledgement message for the put transaction; and asynchronously processing the entry to update one or more namespace manifests of the object storage system.