Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:9999 comp.unix.microport:1901
Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: dump/restore
Keywords: cpio is not a real backup program
Message-ID: <365@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 31 Oct 88 20:17:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: auspex.365
References: <178@celerity.UUCP> <229@dcs.UUCP> <180@celerity.UUCP> <262@mpx2.UUCP>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 19

>Dump/restore is very quick, and it backs up everything, but I have
>a few questions:   It seems to dump the entire filesystem, including
>the superblock/inode dumps.  It also seems to me that it dumps
>disk blocks in order of the disk itself, rather than the order of the
>file.  This means that restoring a filesystem will *not* reduce
>the fragmentation.

False.  It does not dump disk blocks in the order of the disk, and it
definitely doesn't *restore* disk blocks in the order of the disk
itself.  Dumping/restoring a file system will reduce fragmentation,
especially on systems such as V7, S3, or 4.1BSD that have the V7 file system
and also have dump/restor (not "restore").  Unfortunately, S5 has the V7
file system, but generally doesn't have dump/restor....

>Does it also require the exact same filesystem to by restored on?
>If this is so, then I can't use dump/retore to expand a full filesystem.

No, it doesn't; one of the common uses of dump/restor(e) is to expand
full file systems.