1. A method of performing abbreviated resource checks to determine whether data storage requests would fail in a data storage system, the method comprising: receiving a list of data storage requests to be performed by the data storage system, wherein the data storage requests in the list form part of a data backup operation, and wherein each data storage request in the list specifies two or more data storage resources that are required to perform the respective data storage request; for a first data storage request, without having to perform the first data storage request itself, performing one or more abbreviated checks to determine whether the first data storage request will fail, wherein performing the one or more abbreviated checks includes: (i) determining which of the two or more data storage resources specified by the first data storage request are physical resources, (ii) selecting the data storage resources determined to be physical resources, and (iii) performing, in an order based on relative chances of failure of the respective selected physical resources, one or more physical checks of whether the selected physical resources are available to satisfy the first data storage request, the performing the one or more physical checks including determining whether hardware for performing the first data storage request is working, wherein the one or more physical checks of the selected physical resources are performed before any logical checks of the selected physical resources may be performed; and when the one or more abbreviated checks indicate that the first data storage request would fail if performed, then: updating the received list of data storage requests by removing the first data storage request from the received list of data storage requests to indicate that the first data storage request should not be performed, wherein the updating is performed without attempting to perform the first data storage request and without performing a check of all data storage resources required for performing the first data storage request.