computer systems may loose data when a failure occurs within a system . to counteract such loss of data a backup system may be employed . common backup systems make a copy of either of the data on a storage device or the data , which has changed , on a storage device . the process of backing up data may involve storing a relatively large amount of data and so is commonly done infrequently , such as once per day . if a computer &# 39 ; s data is backed up only once per day , several hours of data may be lost if a computer system fails . embodiments of the present invention may be used to prevent this type of data loss by backing up more frequently . in order to back up more frequently less data at a time is backed up . instead of the data undergoing a wholesale backup infrequently , embodiments of the present invention form a timed log of the storage writes performed by the computer system . the log provides a running picture of activity to the computer storage system . by preserving the log , for example storing it at a remote site through a network connection , the state of the computer can be recreated with any desired granularity , by using the log entries to recreate the state of the data within the computer system at any desired time .