On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 11:02 AM, Francis Gerund ranrund@gmail.com wrote:
Hello.
After some reading, including the rsync man page, I am still not clear on this: When using rsync to backup and restore, when should and when should one *not* include hard links (by using the -H option switch)?
A simple example case would be backups for one or just a few light-duty local workstations. Is there a simple, clear rule about that, or is it too complicated for that?
Use it unless the resulting backup run is too slow to be practical - which will only be when there are vast numbers of hardlinks in the filesystem which is pretty rare (backuppc's archive, for example). That is, if you don't know whether or not you need it you are better off retaining as much of the original filesystem attributes as possible in your backups. But, keep in mind that it can only reproduce the hardlinks that exist in the portion of the filesystem that is covered in one run. If you do multiple runs covering different subdirectories, it can't duplicate hardlinks outside of each run.