Image grows without control

[Drdul]

I get what you're saying, but here's the thing. SD includes the ability to exclude specific directories from an image. My source drive is 750 GB, and is about half full. I have exclude my Documents, Movies, Pictures and Sites folders (as these are backed up separately with a different app), leaving just the "system files" — basically, what I would need to clone a new hard drive if the one I'm using now suddenly melted down (or my computer was stolen). That's why I only have approx. 60 GB of files.

Because I'm using a 750 GB hard drive, does that mean my SD backup could grow to 750 GB, even though I'm only backing up 60 GB? If that's the case, it would be really nice to have something built into SD to limit the size of the disk image, as my Mom wouldn't be able to do it using Disk Utility.

With the impending release of Leopard and the built-in Time Machine feature, a lot more people might find themselves wanting to back up just the system files, as Time Machine would be taking care of their "user files." This thing with the image file being several times larger than the files it contains might be a more widespread issue. In anticipation of that, you might want to add a "system files only" backup script to SD and a built-in ability to limit the size of the image file.

In the meantime, I've got my solution (using Disk Utility), so I'm happy. Thanks again for taking the time to explain all this.

Cheers!