Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!bu-cs!purdue!decwrl!labrea!agate!ucbvax!ICDC.LLNL.GOV!OBERMAN
From: OBERMAN@ICDC.LLNL.GOV ("Kevin Oberman, LLNL, 422-6955, L-156", 415)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: RE: another BACKUP question
Message-ID: <8805230813.AA13281@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 17 May 88 15:14:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 18

>         My question: are the directory files on tape as useless as
>         they seem? Is there a way to avoid them, if they are? 

No. Directories are NOT useless! They are absolutely essential to making
incremental restores work.

Incremental restore uses the most recent directory to determine what files
from backup have been superceded and should be deleted or not restored.
Since BACKUP never can tell when an incremental restore might be needed,
it always saves the directories.

					R. Kevin Oberman
					Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
					Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov
   					(415) 422-6955

Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing
and probably don't really know anything useful about anything.