using dump

[Burke, Thomas G.]

Hello all,

	What's the best way to do backups?  Am I better off to use dump, or to just tar up directory structures?  I see that dump is nice in that it will break up large files automatically (not sure if tar will do that).  I assume that tar defaults to retaining permissions.  (I do notice there is -p option)

	I ran dump the othe rnight for the 1st time ever (& I've been SysOping for 15 years - always tar'd to tape on Solaris, but my linux machines have no access to tape drives, so I've always tar'd to disk) & what I see worries me.

	I did a (from memory) dump -0 -M /backup/rootdir /

	The files that were created came out to much less than what was on the system.  Thinking maybe compression was somehow involved, I dump'd each directory individually, and found that there was a gross mismatch in overall file size..

	I would like to get some help/insight into what's really going on here.

	Thanks,
		Tom