diff --git a/remote-backup b/remote-backup
index 0405599..3754430 100755
--- a/remote-backup
+++ b/remote-backup
@@ -105,8 +105,8 @@ do
 		$RM -rf "$SNAPSHOT_RW/$NAME/daily.${MAX_ROTATE}"
 	fi
 
-# step 2: shift the middle snapshots(s) back by one, if they exist
-	for backup_number in $(seq $((${MAX_ROTATE}-1)) -1 1)
+# step 2: shift the snapshots(s) back by one, if they exist
+	for backup_number in $(seq $((${MAX_ROTATE}-1)) -1 0)
 	do
 		if [ -d "$SNAPSHOT_RW/$NAME/daily.${backup_number}" ]
 		then
@@ -115,23 +115,22 @@ do
 		fi
 	done
 
-# step 3: make a hard-link-only (except for dirs) copy of the latest snapshot,
-# if that exists
-	if [ -d "$SNAPSHOT_RW/$NAME/daily.0" ]
+# step 3: rsync from the system, linking to latest snapshot if files are
+# identical.
+	RSYNC_OPTS="-a \
+				--delete \
+				--delete-excluded \
+				--exclude-from='$EXCLUDES' \
+				--bwlimit='$BWLIMIT'"
+	
+	if [ -d "$SNAPSHOT_RW/$NAME/daily.1/" ]
 	then
-		$CP -al "$SNAPSHOT_RW/$NAME/daily.0" "$SNAPSHOT_RW/$NAME/daily.1"
+		RSYNC_OPTS="$RSYNC_OPTS \
+					--link-dest='$SNAPSHOT_RW/$NAME/daily.1/'"
 	fi
 
-# step 4: rsync from the system into the latest snapshot (notice that
-# rsync behaves like cp --remove-destination by default, so the destination
-# is unlinked first.  If it were not so, this would copy over the other
-# snapshot(s) too!
 	$RSYNC \
-		-a \
-		--delete \
-		--delete-excluded \
-		--exclude-from="$EXCLUDES" \
-		--bwlimit="$BWLIMIT" \
+		$RSYNC_OPTS \
 		"${REMOTE_LOCATION}" \
 		"$SNAPSHOT_RW/$NAME/daily.0"