Strange difference in file size when copying LARGE file..

Hi, Im trying to take a database backup. one of the files is 26 GB. I am using cp -pr to create a backup copy of the database. after the copying is complete, if i do du -hrs on the folders i saw a difference of 2GB.

The weird fact is that the BACKUP folder was 2 GB more than the original one!

when i did du -hrs * inside each of the 2 folders and compared the output, i found the culprit. it was a file temp.dbf which was 26 GB on the source(original) folder and 28 GB in the BACKUP folder. I tried the copy procedure twice and I am getting the same result.

does anyone have any explanation for this. please let me know. I want to make sure everything is right here in the copy.

PS:- Solaris SPARC 23 BIT.

Thanks

The original file must have been a sparce file.

See this post.