File management for eDiscovery

• US 10,210,165 B2
• Filed: 08/30/2016
• Issued: 02/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Walmart Apollo, LLC (WalMart Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Walmart Apollo, LLC (WalMart Inc.)
• Inventors: Crews, Aaron David
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoang, Son T
• Application Number:
  US15/251,717
• Publication Number:
  US 20170068682A1
• Time in Patent Office: 903 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/185 Hierarchical storage management [HSM] systems, e.g. file migration or policies thereof details of archiving G06F16/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems

Abstract

An ediscovery system filters a document corpus to identify a filtered document set. The filtered document set is further analyzed to identify a production document set. Documents of the document corpus are stored in one of online storage and nearline storage, nearline storage providing slower access times. Documents added to the production set and/or filtered document set are moved to online storage if not already present. A countdown is associated with each document in the online storage and the document is moved to nearline storage on expiration of the counter. For each document moved, a placeholder file is retained in online storage that includes searchable text of the document. Documents in the production set may have a countdown that is longer for documents in the filtered document set. Documents in the filtered document set may have a countdown that is longer than remaining documents in the document corpus.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computer system, a first document set from a first database, each document of the first document set having a last-accessed value;

storing, by the computer system, the first document set in a fast storage medium;

receiving, by the computer system, one or more filter criteria;

(a) selecting, by the computer system, a second document set from the first document set, each document of the second document set satisfying the one or more filter criteria;

(b) selecting, by the computer system and in response to a received selection instruction, a third document set from the second document set;

(c) outputting, by the computer system, a listing of the third document set;

transferring, by the computer system, a first portion of the first document set to a slow storage medium, the fast storage medium having an access time greater than an access time of the slow storage medium, each document in the first portion having a last-accessed value of more than N days prior to a current date, the first portion excluding the third document set;

transferring, by the computer system a second portion of the first document set to the slow storage medium, each document in the second portion being in the third document set and having a last-accessed value of more than M days prior to the current date, wherein M is greater than N; and

transferring, by the computer system, a third portion of the first document set to the slow storage medium, each document in the third portion being in the second document set and not in the third document set, and each document in the third portion having a last-accessed value more than P days prior to the current date, wherein P is greater than N and less than M.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transferring, by the computer system, a fourth portion of the first document set from the slow storage medium to the fast storage medium in response to a document being selected in at least one of (a), (b), or (c).

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

transferring, by the computer system, a filth portion of the first document set from the slow storage medium to the fast storage medium in response to a document being accessed by a user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein M is at least two times N and P is at least 1.5 times N.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising refraining from transferring documents in the third document set to the slow storage medium regardless of a number of days between corresponding last-accessed values of documents in the third document set and the current date.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

indexing the first document set;

generating, for each document of the first document set, a placeholder file, the placeholder file including at least a portion of textual content of each indexed document in the first document set.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the transferring the first portion of the first document set to the slow storage medium further comprises retaining in the fast storage medium the placeholder file for each document of the first portion.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the selecting the third document set from the second document set comprises analyzing corresponding placeholder files of documents in the second document set.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the placeholder file for each document in the first document set includes all textual content of each document.

10. A system comprising:

a slow storage medium;

a fast storage medium, the last storage medium having faster access time than the slow storage medium;

a computer system comprising one or more processing devices and one or more memory devices operably coupled to the one or more processing devices, the one or more memory devices storing executable code effective to cause the one or more processing devices to;

receive a first document set, each document of the first document set having a last-accessed value;

receive one or more filter criteria;

(a) select a second document set from the first document set, each document of the second document satisfying the one or more filter criteria;

(b) at least one of select and receive a selection of a third document set from the second document set;

(c) output a listing of the third document set;

transfer first documents, second documents, and third documents in the first document set to the slow storage medium;

each of the first documents having the last-accessed value of more than N days before a current date and not being in the third document set;

each of the second documents being in the third document set and having the last-accessed value of more than M days before the current date, wherein M is greater than N; and

each of the third documents being in the second document set and not in the third document set and having the last accessed value of more than P days before the current date, wherein P is greater than N and less than M.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the executable code is further effective to cause the one or more processing devices to:

for the second documents in the first document set that are stored in the slow storage medium and have been selected in at least one of (a), (b), or (c), updating the last-accessed values of the second documents to the current date and transferring the second documents to the fast storage medium.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the executable code is further effective to cause the one or more processing devices to:

detect attempts to access the third documents in the first document set;

in response to detecting the attempts to access the third documents in the first document set, moving the third documents to the fast storage medium if not currently stored in the fast storage medium and updating the last-accessed values of the third documents to dates of the attempts to access the third documents.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein M is at least two times N and P is at least 1.5 times N.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the executable code is further effective to cause the one or more processing devices to:

refrain from transferring documents in the third document set to the slow storage medium regardless of a difference between the last-accessed values of the documents in the third document set and the current date.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the executable code is further effective to cause the one or more processing devices to:

index the first document set;

generate, for each document of the first document set, a placeholder file, the placeholder file including at least a portion of textual content of each indexed document in the first document set.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the executable code is further effective to cause the one or more processing devices to:

retain in the fast storage medium the placeholder file for each of the first documents.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the executable code is further effective to cause the one or more processing devices to:

select the third document set from the second document set by analyzing corresponding placeholder files of documents in the second document set.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the placeholder file for each document in the first document set includes all textual content of each document.