Robert Bell <robert.b...@csiro.au> wrote: > > 2. Metadata history. If there is an existing file in the target dir > > that differs only by metadata (permissions, ownership, timestamp) then > > rsync will simply change that metadata. That change affects all > > instances of that file. Of course this is better for storage space as > > the alternative is storing another copy of the file with the different > > metadata but we decided it was better to have that information saved. > Yes. > > I would love to see someone make a patched version of rsync to allow > callers to select a different behaviour in this case! > > So, if a file has identical content on source and destination but > different metadata, then if --link-dest is in use and the link count on > the destination is > 1, then take a new copy from source rather than > just updating the metadata ...
Or you could arrange to store the content and the metadata separately, so that all files having common content -- or similar large content with small deltas -- can share a single instance of that content. There is a rather well-known subsystem (toolkit, really) which already provides this capability: git. Figuring out the details of using it as a back-end for rsync backups is left as an exercise :) -- Please use reply-all for most replies to avoid omitting the mailing list. To unsubscribe or change options: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync Before posting, read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
