A system for retrieving stored data and/or index pages, receives a database request, generates an access plan for the database request for accessing data rows and/or index entries according to the statement, and generates a priming process by selecting a set of data and/or index pages. The set of data and/or index pages is a super-set or the exact set of the pages needed for accessing data rows and/or index entries according to the access plan. The present system retrieves the data and/or index pages of the set before executing the database request according to the access plan. The execution of the database request is performed by scanning the index and data pages preloaded into the cache. This reduces the number of necessary disk reads during execution.