Rsync version 3.0.9 - SMB versus AFP for metadata integrity

"Carbon Copy Cloner" uses rsync, and includes a fully Mac OS X patched version inside the .app directory tree.

CCC is a highly respected disk cloning utility.

Based on that reputation, I would say if you get the CCC version of rsync, it will maintain Mac file integrety. However, if you are concerned, you should verify any manually implemented rsync for yourself.

NOTE: CCC can do networked backups. I backup a subset of my Macbook Pro via CCC to my iMac over a local LAN connection. Just finished one a few minutes ago.

I think you misunderstood. Bob was saying that CCC uses rsync 3, so if there were any problems with rsync it would be all over the web. Since CCC works fine, your implementation should work fine as well.

As for the sluggishness... is there anything else going on, such as spotlight indexing? what you want to look for is something that the system will do over afp that it won't do over smb (or vice-versa). It would help if you could post your rsync code.

What twtwtw said. If rsync is good enough for Carbon Copy Cloner (a well respected backup utility), then rsync, properly patched, should be good enough for you.

You could always go to the Carbon Copy Cloner web site and see if there are any issues in their forums about rsync. <http://help.bombich.com/>

My understanding is that the CCC author (a former Apple employee) is active in maintaining rsync for Mac OS X use.

A suggestion:

Get 1 copy of CCC and see how CCC configures the rsync command line (start a long CCC transfer, then use the Terminal 'ps ax | grep rsync' command to see how the CCC rsync command line options).

My bottom line is that CCC has years of experience using rsync as a backup tool for Mac OS X. At least try to learn from what they have learned. Getting everything right with an rsync command line can be trickie (I do use rsync at lot at work on Unix systems, and it is never easy to get it correct).

FYI: The Carbon Copy Cloner rsync is located at:

Carbon Copy Cloner.app/Contents/MacOS/ccc_helper.app/Contents/MacOS/rsync

you might also look at this tech note about spotlight indexing. Whenever I see intermittent slowdowns the first thing I think of is spotlight indexing, and if you happen to be indexing a big network drive it will suck up a lot of bandwidth.