Hmmm... I was just looking at the '-a' option and see that it does the -D option (--devices) which man says is 'preserve device files (superuser only). Does that mean I need to run it as root   and further does it mean I need to run the backup as root? Then again /home shouldn't have any device files so I guess the -D option is moot in my case. Could I get an answer in case I ever want to do a full backup?