How sparse is too sparse?

[donmateo]

I have just backed up my wife's 12in G4 PB and the resulting sparse image is much smaller than the "used" capacity on her hard drive. It's down to 69MB from 19GB!

So, I realize that sparse images will, by design, be smaller than the space used for the "real" files, but that seems like a huge difference.

I will say that her RAM capacity is weak, (256MB) so perhaps the difference is due to ginormous swap files... Ideas? Reassurance?

[dnanian]

That seems entirely wrong. What copy script did you use?

[donmateo]

That seems entirely wrong. What copy script did you use?

Well, I was all ready to reply "Backup - all" when I looked again, and wouldn't you know it, after the Finder had some time to think things over, lo and behold the sparse image is 18 Gigs. I'd say that's more like it.

Sorry to trouble you, but thanks for the speedy response!

[dnanian]

Glad to hear it was just the Finder being Findery.