On 7/9/12, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
One thing that helps is to break it up into separate runs, at least per-filesystem and perhaps some of the larger subdirectories. Depending on the circumstances, you might be able to do an initial run ahead of time when speed doesn't matter so much, then just before the cutover shut down the services that will be changing files and databases and do a final rsync which will go much faster.
I did try this but the time taken is pretty similar in the main delay is the part where rsync goes through all the files and spend a few hours trying to figure out what needs to be the updated on the second run after I shutdown the services. In hindsight, I might had been able to speed up things up considerably if I had generated a file list based on last modified time and passed it to rsync via the exclude/include parameters.
Also, have you looked at clonezilla and ReaR?
Yes, but due to time constraints, I figured it was safer to go with something simpler that I didn't have to learn as I go and could be done live without needed extra hardware on site. Plus it would be something that works at any site I needed it without extra software too.