System and method for conducting a forensic analysis of electronic data having files and information indicative of a location of each of the files. The system has processors and a controller. The controller is configured to characterize the electronic data based, at least in part, on the files and the information indicative of the location of each of the files to obtain a characterization and distribute segments of the electronic data to the processors based, at least in part, on the characterization, each of the processors corresponding to at least one of the segments and each of the segments corresponding to at least one of the processors. Each one of the processors is configured to process each corresponding one of the segments to identify at least one characteristic of each corresponding one of the segments.