Patent ID: 7548904

Claim:
A system that facilitates maintaining an item, comprising: an inference component that inferentially determines whether to store the item in an active or archived state based at least in part upon: a probabilistic cost-benefit analysis to determine the item's worth by comparing an overhead cost attributable to storing the item in the active state versus a benefit associated with storing the item in the active state, the overhead cost determined based in part on the size of the item and the benefit determined at least in part by calculating a probability a user will access the item in the future; an assessment of the item's worth relative to the worth of other items actively stored, wherein the item is stored in the active or archived state according to the assessment of the item's relative worth; an assessment of the number of times the item is likely to be accessed by the user, wherein an item that is unlikely to be viewed more than once is stored in the active state until viewed by the user; and at least one of an archiving rule or a policy that affects the probabilistic cost-benefit analysis, the at least one archiving rule or policy is customized by a user; and an optimization component that determines an arrangement of items in the active state to maximize a total value density of the items in the active state, the value density for the item is determined based upon determining the probability a user will access the item divided by a total size of the item, wherein a memory operatively coupled to a processor retains at least one of the inference component or the optimization component.