Patent ID: 9552432
Date: 2017-01-24
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. A method for lightweight retrieval of content, comprising: receiving, at a server having an in-memory index, a request to retrieve a photograph from a storage system, wherein the photograph includes image content and the storage system is different and distinct from the sever; interpreting the request at the in-memory index, wherein the in-memory index identifies a hierarchical data structure associated with the request, the hierarchical data structure comprising metadata associated with the requested photograph; retrieving the metadata for the requested photograph, wherein the metadata resides on a solid state drive (“SSD”); identifying a source at the storage system, the source comprising one of a multi-image container file on a hard disk drive (“HDD”) and a photo cache on the SSD, wherein the multi-image container file has a system-wide fixed size based on a user behavior; determining an offset for the image content within the multi-image container file from the metadata, wherein the offset is associated with a node in the hierarchical data structure; retrieving the image content from the source; and displaying the image content and associated metadata on a display.