Patent ID: 8868602

Claim:
A database manager system for managing one or more external databases, comprising: a detector to detect a connection of an external database to the database manager, wherein the external database includes a plurality of media files, a database file system including, for each of the plurality of media files, a media identifier including a file name or a directory path name of the corresponding media file and an identification of the location of the corresponding media file in the external database, and metadata for each of the plurality of media files; a database synchronizer to read and store, as a first step, only at least a portion of the database file system including the file names or the directory path names for at least a subset of the plurality of media files and not to read or store the metadata for the plurality of media files, and to further read and store, when the file names or the directory path names for at least the subset of the plurality of media files of the database file system have been read, in a second step at least a part of the metadata for the plurality of media files; and a search request processor to process a search request for a media file of at least the subset of the plurality of media files by accessing the file names or the directory path names of the database file system for at least the subset of the plurality of media files and by not accessing the metadata of at least the subset of the plurality of media files in parallel with the second step performed by the database synchronizer, wherein the search request processor provides a search result based on the file names or the directory path names for at least the subset of the plurality of media files from the database file system, even when the metadata for the plurality of media files have not yet been read and stored by the database synchronizer in the second step; wherein the search request processor retrieves only the metadata for the media file included in the search result in parallel with the database synchronizer performing the second step, or the search request processor interrupts the database synchronizer so that the database synchronizer retrieves only the metadata for the media files included in the search result in response to the interrupting, and the database synchronizer continues with the second step, when the metadata for the media files in the search result are successfully retrieved; wherein at least one of the detector, the database synchronizer, and the search request processor is implemented as a hardware processor.