1. A system for accessing a file on a storage module comprising a plurality of storage nodes, the system comprising: a field programmable gate array (FPGA) based storage node manager configured to manage the plurality of storage nodes of the storage module, and to: communicate with a processing subsystem comprising a non-FPGA processor and an operating system (OS) configured to perform file management operations on the storage module, based at least in part, on a storage-module sector size independent of a sector size of at least one of the plurality of storage nodes of the storage module; receive a request to access a portion of a file from a specialized processing unit, accessing comprising at least one of reading data from the file and writing data to the file without invoking by the non-FPGA processor a data access function provided by the OS; receive a portion of file allocation information for the file to be accessed; compute one or more storage node sector addresses corresponding to one or more data elements stored or to be stored in the file, based on at least in part: (i) the portion of file allocation information and (ii) a parameter of a plurality of storage nodes managed by the storage node manager, the parameter comprising: (A) a number of storage nodes of the storage module, and (B) a sector size of each storage node; and provide, to the specialized processing unit, access to locations of the one or more data elements in the storage module using the one or more storage node sector addresses computed by the storage node manager based on the portion of file allocation information provided by the OS and the parameter of the storage nodes managed by the storage node manager.