Patent ID: 8643877

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a first acquisition unit configured to acquire information representing an amount of use of a storage area of a document management apparatus different from the image forming apparatus; a determination unit configured to determine whether the amount of use of the storage area of the document management apparatus exceeds a threshold; a document storage unit configured to store data in a storage unit of the image forming apparatus when the amount of use exceeds the threshold, and store the data in the storage area of the document management apparatus when the amount of use is less than or equal to the threshold; and a frequency check unit configured to check a use frequency of data stored in the storage unit and the storage area, the document storage unit configured to move the data when it is determined to be lower than a threshold for the use frequency, from the storage area to the storage unit, and move the data when it is determined to be higher than the threshold for the use frequency, from the storage unit to the storage area to replace the data between the storage area and the storage unit at a time point where a sleep state is released.