[indiamike]

Yes it does increase the size incredibly, however if you are doing a backup from the control panel you have the option to not include the search files in your backup saving time. In the options just click "no" to not include the search files.

If you have to restore from your backup you can just click rebuild search index to restore it.

Whenever I backup I always exclude it.

This however may not be the case if you are using Telnet though.
I am not to familar with Telnet backing up, but you could probably just dump your search engine in the control panel before doing a backup (go into update counters field to do this).

Hope this helps.

Mike