A method and system for efficiently importing/exporting a removable storage
volume having a number of data files from a first virtual storage system
to a second virtual storage system. The method includes writing a table of
contents to the end of the removable storage volume in the first virtual
storage system. The table of contents uniquely identifies the data files
residing in the removable storage volume. Next, the removable storage
volume is transferred to the second virtual storage system. Upon receipt
of the removable storage volume, the second virtual storage system updates
a database in the second virtual storage system utilizing the information
contained in the table of contents without having to read each of the data
files in the removable storage volume. In a related embodiment, for each
of the data file in the removable storage volume, the table of contents
includes a filename, starting record on the removable storage volume and
number of records in the data file.
