The technology describes forking (dividing) a data stream into multiple data streams comprising appending a first new data stream and a second new data stream to the original data stream. After forking, the two new data streams have different sets of stream fragments, with one or more of the older stream fragments common to both sets. Data events before the forking operation are read from the original data stream, while data events appended after the forking operation are appended to and read from only one of the data streams, based on which stream each writer/reader is registered to. Also described is truncating the original data stream based on one stream identifier, while leaving the original data intact for another stream identifier. Only when no stream needs a portion of the original data (resulting from separate truncation operations) is the data portion deleted.