A mechanism is provided for reducing the backup time of data files from a memory. Data files are pre-staged by identifying the data files in the memory to be backed up to a backup storage system, sorting the data files by size thereby forming a set of small data files and a set of large data files, and copying the set of small data files to a cache while leaving the set of large data files in a disk subsystem. The set of small data files are then backed-up from the cache and the set of large data files are backed-up from the disk subsystem to a backup storage system. Thus, the time required to backup the set of small data files from the cache is performed at a faster rate as compared to backing up the set of large data files from the disk subsystem.