Greg Rundlett wrote: > ...cp can be used to make a phase one copy, and then (shut off write > access to source) rsync can be used to do the final copy.
I've successfully used this 2-phase technique on several occasions to migrate data sets in the neighborhood of a few terabytes. Sure, tar might be faster than cp, but if you are using cp to do a non-time critical bulk transfer, speed likely won't matter much. (It may even be possible that the pauses cp takes to refill its buffers results in it saturating your I/O bandwidth less, which could be desirable if you are running this job while the disks are in use.) As pointed out, sparse files may be a concern, but you may know by the nature of your data that you don't have sparse files. (i.e. if you know they are all of a certain type or managed by a VCS tool that doesn't use sparse files.) There's probably a test you can run to check for the presence of sparse files. -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA "Enterprise solutions through open source." Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss