Recreation of archives at a disaster recovery site

A method for creating a standby data processing system located at a standby site, which is remotely located from a primary site. The method comprises a first step of computing a difference between an active data file and an archive data file to produce a delta image at the primary site. Another step is transmitting the active data file and the delta image, separately in time sequence, from the primary site to a standby site. A final step is combining the delta image with the active data file at the standby site, to produce an archive data file. An advantage of this method is the creation of a standby data processing system, while using a lower bandwidth to create this additional site.