On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 at 11:30am, Stephen Carville wrote

> On Wednesday April 30 2003 10:56 am, Gregor Ibic wrote:
> > why is amrecover so slow, it seems that reads the entire backup,
> > not only the requested file(s).
> > using TAR
> 
> A tape is not a random access device so it must first be wound forward to the 
> position of the tar file and then tar has to read the archive until it 
> reaches the file that need to be restored.  If you file is near the end of 
> the tape is can certainly seem like it is reading the entire tape.

And, I believe, tar reads the entire file to make sure it has gotten 
everything you requested.

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University