Using RSYNC to copy files locally

UNIX Solaris
1

Has anyone ever used rsync to copy files locally on one server? (in this case from one SAN volume to another).

I am familiar with using rsync to copy files between servers, but not locally, I would usually use cp or or tar or something.

Is rsync slower? Does it use additional overhead of the loopback interface? When I look at the man page it really looks as if it was intended to be used as a network copy mechanism.

So, my point is, does rsync use additional overhead as opposed to just using cp?

Thanks!

2

Are you doing this to mirror one volume to another on the SAN? If so, is the SAN not already configured as a RAID for data redundancy in case of a hard drive failure?

3

We are making a copy of a Database and the application files.

We are upgrading the database so we want to make a copy of the existing files to fall back to.

existing files are on /something and we want to copy to /somethingelse.
Both are on the same SAN, and it is RAIDed but they are different filesystems / volumes.

4

I did a Search of the Forum for "rsync vs cp" and found this:

5

you are looking to back up the database??? why not just dump it?

also, there is really no need to rsync the application files because you are copying to a new location and not a location where the files already exists... such as syncing the directories/files. tar.Z the files up and copy to new location.