Patent ID: 7249219

Claim:
A method comprising: creating a set of metafile entries in a network device which includes primary storage and secondary storage, each of the metafile entries containing metadata for a logical grouping of related objects stored by the network device; and using the set of metafile entries to reduce accesses to the secondary storage in response to requests for the objects, including receiving a request for an object from a client over a network; determining whether the object is cached by the network device; and if the object is not cached by the network device, then in response to the request for the object, determining whether the object is related to a previously requested object, wherein the object is determined to be related to the previously requested object if the object and the previously requested object are determined to have been requested by the same client within a specified period of time, and if the object is determined to be related to the previously requested object and a predetermined condition is met, then writing the object to a file in the secondary storage, and writing metadata for the object into a metafile entry which contains metadata for both the object and the previously requested object.