I use rsync on my Unix boxes to archive or update directories on different host machines. Recently I have started using it to synchronize directories between my Windows boxes at work and at home (through the VPN) via the SAN drives. This works quite well, especially for files such as large Word documents as the format just seems to include new stuff in chunks so that the rsync algorithm need only update the changes. Using the -z compression switch also helps to speed the transfer.

I include a short file I’ll call rsync.sh. I run bash in cygwin and paste in the appropriate line. I keep the -n switch so that no action will take place initially and I’ll recognize whether the list of files to be transferred looks correct.

# remove -n to do the operation
# home to work
rsync -n -Cavz --stats /cygdrive/c/home/jservice/work/DIR /cygdrive/h/network/
# work to home
rsync -n -Cavz --stats /cygdrive/h/network/DIR /cygdrive/c/home/jservice/work/
# network to desktop
rsync -n -Cavz --stats /cygdrive/h/network/DIR /cygdrive/d/work/
# desktop to network
rsync -n -Cavz --stats /cygdrive/d/work/DIR /cygdrive/h/network/