Zoltan,

        I would suggest the problem is nothing but the amount of files that
need to be processed.  I have one client with 3 million + files set that
file system to do incrbydate instead of incremental.  The results were
definitely worth it.  The only loophole I can see with this solution is as
follows.  If a file is added to the file system with a previous date then
incrbydate will not pick it up.  For example if you untar files into the
filesystem  the files will maintain their original date and not be backed
up.  To catch these exceptions you would need to do a regular incremental
once a week or as you see fit.

        The only other option I have seen on this board is to tar the files
up first and then backup them up.  This however might require a large amount
of disk space.

        As far as no data being transferred for the first eight hours I find
that surprising.  I would assume that the first file system to be looked at
is / and there would definitely be files there that need to be backed up.
The only explanation I can think of is if your backup is looking at the
filesystem with the large number of files first.

IMHO
Jon Martin