Patent ID: 7596586

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for storing and retaining data stored on storage media, wherein the storage media comprises a data set including a plurality of data elements, the method comprising: creating a full backup of data elements in the data set; creating a plurality of incremental backups of the data elements, wherein the incremental backups comprise data elements that have been modified since the creation of the full backup; storing the created full backup and the created incremental backups to storage media; and managing retention of the data stored on the storage media, including: preventing overwrites to the storage media upon determining the storage media contains at least one incremental backup or full backup that satisfies a retention criteria, wherein the determining includes: for each incremental backup and full backup stored on the storage media: obtaining an aging preference, wherein the aging preference includes a time period beginning at a time of creation of the incremental backup or the full backup that defines a period of retention for the incremental backup or the full backup, wherein the period of retention for the full backup is different than the period of retention for at least one of the plurality of incremental backups; retrieving index data indicating the date of creation of the incremental backup or the full backup; comparing the retrieved index data with the obtained aging preference; and determining that the incremental backup or full backup satisfies the retention criteria based on the comparison; and allocating the storage media to a scratch pool comprising a set of media to be overwritten upon determining no incremental backups or full backups satisfy the retention criteria.