I'm a huge fan of perl, but as soon as you talk about invoking system(), you are stepping outside the boundary of "pure" perl. Since you confess to be a *nix person, let me suggest that you investigate rsync as an alternative to tar for backing up files. (It's what I use, if unsolicited testimon(k)ials count for anything). You should be able to install rsync via whatever package manager you have at your disposal. It's almost unbelievable fast, and it uses a lot less space than tar. (Update: I should emphasize that rsync uses less space than multiple tarballs. With compression, a tarball can save a lot of space over an uncompressed image.)