On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Jon LaBadie <jon AT jgcomp DOT com> wrote:
> I think that a reason the entire file is read is a property of
> the underlying archive programs, dump/tar, rather than amanda.
> They may have a "replace" capability that would allow newer
> versions of a file to update the same file already in an archive.
> Amanda never makes use of this feature, but the underlying
> programs don't know this and are probably looking for "later
> replacements".

This is absolutely correct.  Tar *does* support "jumping in" in the
middle of an archive, but Amanda does not yet record the by position
of each file in an archive.  There are plans to do this in the
Application API, but much of the machinery has yet to be built.

Dustin

-- 
Open Source Storage Engineer
http://www.zmanda.com