UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

I'll start this out by saying that I'm super-new to UNIX and need some help. My setup is as follows:

I am currently running 3 UNIX boxes, 2 application servers and 1 db server. The first application server is my production box, the second application server is my test box, and the db server houses the data for both of the application servers.

I did not set any of this up (I promise...)

Currently, my test region is housing 4 different environments: Test, Train, 5.3 Test and 5.4 Test (different versions). Because of this, I know that I can partition the Application box into different environments.

As part of a contingency plan (In case an automatic data load doesn't work) I need to create an exactly duplicated partition of my current Production environment with absolutely no data. In this partitioned environment, I want to allow users to enter approximately 200,000 records manually and house this information. Meanwhile, I will be attempting to electronically transfer this same data into the original production environment.

Enough for the background, here's the question:
Can I keep that data there and dump it on my deadline into the production box IF the electronic data transfer doesn't work? Please contact me via e-mail if you need more information. I'm desperate!

Don't know if this is simplistic, or I'm missing something, or if you have space restrictions.....

But on the face of it, couldn't you create a tar archive, ftp it to the desired partition, and restore from it?

tar -cvf /tmp/data.tar /data_directory/*

arguments

c - create archive
v - verbose
f - create file named data.tar