Re: [Duplicity-talk] Rsync backend, --write-batch-only

[Andrew Pimlott]

Excerpts from Yann Hamon's message of Sun Nov 04 18:34:25 -0800 2012:
> - Running rsync on my computer, using the --only-write-batch parameter
> of rsync. This would generate some sort of "patch" file.
> - Copy this file to my router (should be fairly quick, it's gbit link)
> - Run rsync on my router with --read-batch, while having my main
> computer turned off.

I would advise caution using rsync batch files.  They sound great, but
in my experience have a number of problems (not all of which may apply
to your situation):

- Most importantly, they do not seem to be well tested.  I ran into
  various errors replaying batch files, with different versions of
  rsync.  So I don't trust that enough people are using and testing this
  feature.  (A shame, because I consider rsync in general very
  reliable.)

- The size of a batch file scales with the size of the data you're
  backing up (number of files mainly, I think), not the size of the
  delta.  So it can have high overhead if your deltas are small.

- I had some issues with read-batch performance.

I posted some of this to the rsync list.  It didn't get any response,
which suggests that batch mode doesn't get much love.

http://lists.samba.org/archive/rsync/2010-April/024946.html

Andrew