Methods for distributing and providing access to stored content from remote storage comprising; receiving a first request to access a first portion of stored content from a requestor, wherein the first request is in a file system request format; creating a placeholder for the stored content so that the placeholder has at least one parameter identical to the stored content and the placeholder can hold the first portion of the stored content and at least a second portion of the stored content; requesting the first portion of the stored content from remote storage; receiving the first portion of the stored content from the remote storage; storing the first portion of the stored content in the placeholder; and before the second portion of the stored content has been stored in the placeholder, providing the first portion of the stored content to the requestor using a file system response format.