Backup & Recovery (Rsync/Tar/Dd)

Speed up your rsync by dropping the delta-transfer overhead

🧩 The Challenge

You ever try to rsync a few terabytes of data that hasn’t actually changed, only to watch the CPU climb to 100% while the system calculates signatures for every single file? I’ve wasted entire afternoons watching disks spin just because the default behavior tries to be too clever.

💡 The Fix

Just tell rsync to treat the files as whole chunks instead of trying to figure out what changed at the block level. It cuts the heavy lifting down to a fraction of the time when you know you’re just doing a bulk copy.

rsync -av --whole-file /source/ /destination/

⚙️ Why It Works

Setting the whole-file flag skips the delta-transfer algorithm, so your CPU stops wasting cycles comparing file signatures that you don’t actually need it to verify. It turns a compute-heavy task into a simple, straight I/O operation.

🚀 Pro-Tip: Use this with -W if you’re hitting high-latency network links or spinning rust that hates seek operations.

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 9/6/2026