Re: same exe, same input, different output on different servers

James Harper writes:

cp --sparse=auto w2k3test.dump w2k3test2.dump cp w2k3test.dump w2k3test3.dump

ls -lsk *.dump 528240 -rw------- 1 root root 528234 Feb 7 22:36 w2k3test.dump 1048576 -rw------- 1 root root 528234 Feb 8 11:12 w2k3test2.dump 528240 -rw------- 1 root root 528234 Feb 8 11:13 w2k3test3.dump

Possibly also try du & du --apparent-size ?