Backing up sparse files ... VM's and TrueCrypt ... etc

[richard.pieri-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org (Richard Pieri)]

On Feb 18, 2010, at 4:45 PM, Tom Metro wrote:
> 
>       -S, --sparse
>              handle sparse files efficiently

That's the switch that instructs tar to scan every file twice to determine sparseness.  "handle... efficiently" means "don't fill up the archive with nulls".

--Rich P.