in a mesh topology (i.e., a partially connected mesh topology), there are at least two nodes with two or more paths between them to provide redundant paths to be used in case the link providing one of the paths fails. this decentralization is often used to advantage to compensate for the single-point-failure disadvantage that is present when using a single device as a central node (e.g., in star and tree networks). a special kind of mesh, limiting the number of hops between two nodes, is a hypercube. the number of arbitrary forks in mesh networks makes them more difficult to design and implement, but their decentralized nature makes them very useful. this is similar in some ways to a grid network, where a linear or ring topology is used to connect systems in multiple directions. a multi-dimensional ring has a toroidal topology, for instance.