A system and method for concurrent investigations of static data stored in one or more secondary storage devices of one or more target machines in a data communications network. The network includes an examining machine, a secure server, and various target machines. The examining machine transmits to the target machines a search request including a search key. The examining machine also streams to each target machine metadata information and file extents of the files to be searched. The target machines concurrently search the indicated file extents for the search key. The target machines then stream the search results to the examining machine.