Hello, have a question on restoring partial backups with Xtrabackup.

Following the instructions in:
http:// www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/innobackupex/partial_ backups_innobackupex.html?highlight=partial

I was able to successfully backup the partial and run the prep with the --apply-log and --export. From that point I got the new ibdata1 & ib_logfile's ready to be moved to a clean datadir on the target.

The howto mentions the .exp files being created but wondering if I need these files after running:

innobackupex --apply-log --export /temp/backups/2012-06-12_14-47-47

I did delete the files and all works alright, but just wondering if I'm missing something.

Are the .exp files only needed if going this route:
http:// www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/innobackupex/importin g_exporting_tables_ibk.html ?

Also, another thing I noticed is the database is much larger in size now. It was 565M on the source and is now 1.8GB after the prep.

Any ideas why?

thanks,
jim