Evidence capture prioritizes collection activities based on the order of volatility, initially focusing on highly volatile storage. The ISOC best practice guide to evidence collection and archiving, published as tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3227, sets out the general order as follows:
CPU registers and cache memory (including cache on disk controllers, GPUs, and so on) Contents of system memory (RAM), including the following:
Routing table, ARP cache, process table, kernel statistics
Temporary file systems/swap space/virtual memory
Data on persistent mass storage devices (HDDs, SSDs, and flash memory devices) - including file system and free space Remote logging and monitoring data Physical configuration and network topology Archival media