1. An apparatus for backing up data from a primary storage to a secondary storage, the apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a module that identifies a first subset of the data to be backed up, and a second subset of the data to be backed up, both from the primary storage, wherein the first and second subsets of the data are backed up based on a value of an application-level characteristic that is different between the first subset of the data and the second subset of the data; a module that allocates a job for transferring the data from the primary storage to the secondary storage, wherein the secondary storage comprises multiple storage locations; a module that divides the job into multiple data streams, wherein each stream has a corresponding data path for carrying data, and wherein each data path is associated with a corresponding and different media agent and a corresponding and different destination storage location from the multiple storage locations of the secondary storage; and a module that stores, for each unit of data transferred from the primary storage to the secondary storage, information identifying a primary storage location for the unit of data and a destination storage location at which the unit of data is backed up; wherein the first subset of data and the second subset of data are backed up using at least two different streams.