tape system 20 in fig1 a logical backup object lbo is then defined as shown in step 30 a process for defining an lbo will be described in more detail below in conjunction with fig3 and 4 generally however this process determines how to represent data to be backup using collapsed extents processing then proceeds to step 32 in which data movement from a primary storage system e g system 16 in fig1 to a backup and restore system e g system 19 in fig1 is started next the details of the collapsed extents which were specified in step 30 are recorded as shown in step 34 it should be appreciated that step 34 can be performed before or after step 32 generally the information can be conveyed by transmitting metadata information i e the lbo metadata information to the backup and restore system next as shown in step 36 data movement is monitored until the fastrax system provides an indication that the data movement is complete decision block 38 determines whether more files remain to be processed if more files should be processed then processing returns to step 28 and steps 28 36 are repeated until all of the data is moved if no more files remain to be processed then processing ends referring now to fig3 the steps to define an lbo are shown processing begins by discovering the location of the extents to be backed up as shown in step 40 and then appropriately identifying any pattern in the extents to combine or collapse the extents as shown in step 42 it should also be appreciated that step 42 is important to providing an efficient representation of the extents the collapsing step makes the lbo definition work.