On Mon, 5 Apr 2010 12:01:28 +0100, Mick wrote:

> > You can also substantially reduce downtime by first rsyncing while the
> > system is running (using either -x or bind mounts). That will give a
> > slightly inconsistent root, so you then repeat the process from a
> > live CD (using --delete with rsync) to clean things up. The latter
> > rsync takes a fraction of the time as 99.*% of the data is already
> > cpied.  
> 
> I don't know how slow rsync is the first time you run it. Since no one
> has yet suggested it star may be faster, while tar would do it nicely
> like so:

The speed is about the same. It's slow the first time because you have to
copy several gigabytes of data, whichever method you use. The advantage
of rsync is that you can do this while the system is still running then
do a quick update while booted from the live CD, massively reducing
downtime.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

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