Example systems, methods, and apparatus economize generating and processing incremental journal files while maintaining internal consistency. One example method determines whether a sequence number associated with a first inode description in a disaster recovery (DR) journal entry is out of sequence with a second corresponding inode description in a DR metadump. The example method controls a DR journal process to provide a file system inconsistency signal and to suspend application of the DR journal entry to the DR metadump. The suspending and signaling can occur upon determining that a first access time independent verification code computed from the first inode description does not match a second access time independent verification code computed from the second inode description.