According to various embodiments, with respect to a target set of files being managed (e.g., protected by data snapshots), each file in the target set of files is classified into one of two or more filesets (discontiguous filesets), where each of these filesets comprises one or more files that are related to each other by one or more factors, such as frequency of file change or purpose of existence (e.g., used by a software application). Once classified, files within the target set of files can be uniquely processed by a data management operation (e.g., incremental data snapshot process) according to their association to a discontiguous fileset.