Patent ID: 7454406

Claim:
A network storage system comprising: data storage stores file data and metadata associated with the file data, wherein the file data and metadata are stored in a first format corresponding to a first file system and a second format corresponding to a second file system, and wherein the second format is different than the first format; one or more file system Application Program Interfaces (APIs) define operations for writing the file data and metadata to the data storage, wherein the one or more file system APIs handle the file data and metadata in at least the first and second formats; and a metadata handler having a library of functions handle at least the stored metadata in the first and second formats, the library of functions comprising: a metadata object creation function cooperates with the one or more file system APIs, wherein the metadata object creation function reads, from the data storage, the stored metadata in the first and second formats, and creates a metadata object and populates at least a portion of the created metadata object with information corresponding to metadata fields used by the first and second formats, wherein the populated information in the meta data object is in a third format, the third format is different than the first and second formats; and a metadata object extraction function receives the metadata object created by the metadata object creation function, extracts the populated information from the metadata object corresponding to the metadata fields used in the first and second formats, and cooperates with at least one of the one or more file system APIs, wherein by cooperating, the metadata object extraction function generates metadata in at least one of the first and second formats from the extracted information.