Patent ID: 8635191

Claim:
A computer-readable storage device with an executable program to archive digital content stored thereon, wherein the program instructs a microprocessor to perform: implementing an archive storage area that stores a copy of media items of an associated computer system; storing a manifest within the archive storage area, the manifest comprising an index of items stored in a unified structure of the archive; storing in the manifest, at least one backup queue, each backup queue having a list of items that satisfy predetermined backup criteria, wherein the queuing is performed by a processor and the manifest includes both the index and the backup queue; and implementing, by the processor, an archive service that: intermediates between software modules and the archive storage area to control requests for access to items stored in the unified storage structure by interacting with and correspondingly updating the index of the manifest as items are retrieved from and stored in the unified storage structure by the archive service; and interacts with each backup queue in the manifest to back up items stored in the archive storage area at predetermined times based upon predetermined backup criteria for each backup queue.