rsync command for mirroring drives

2026-05-22 00:29 UTC

I wanted a sanity check on my current rsync flags. Posts on Reddit seem to highlight the use of rsync -avz for most use cases, for some instances even for when someone asks for mirroring a drive: www.reddit.com/…/rsync_command_to_mirror_drive/. This has not worked for me for the following case: Drive #1: file1.txt file2.txt Drive #2: file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt With -avz, file3 on the destination would not be deleted. With experimenting, I ended up now using rsync -havziP --delete-after --info=progress2 dir1/ dir2/, which actually ended up mirroring the drives for me. My question is: is this the best rsync approach for mirroring drives or was there a better option that works better? Side note: it is interesting that rclone sync from rclone (rclone.org/commands/rclone_sync/) claims to delete by default, while with rsync it seems to be something you have to distinctly mention.

Replies (6)

@Magister@lemmy.world 2026-05-22 01:23

I do about the same, something like rsync -av --delete

Open ##2749973
@hades@feddit.uk 2026-05-22 06:20

-z might be pointless since you’re transferring files locally.

Open ##2782243
@BCsven@lemmy.ca 2026-05-22 04:24

Grsync makes this easier :)

Open ##2782711
@IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 2026-05-22 09:49

There’s also –delete-before which might help if your destination is tight on available space. And, as usual with ‘traditional’ tools, man-page is pretty good, there’s a ton of parameters which might be helpful. And, as @hades@feddit.uk already mentioned, compression (-z) may actually hurt performance if you have a lot of bandwidth or if you’re copying over already compressed data like JPGs.

Open ##2784355
@Infernal_pizza@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-05-22 12:38

I usually use rsync -azP --delete but I’m not sure if that’s the best option.

Open ##2785768
@limelight79@lemmy.world 2026-05-23 16:32

You have your answers, but I just want to note that what I do is run rsync from cron nightly, without the delete option. Basically this reduces the chances of losing something by accidentally deleting it on the primary drive. Every few weeks/months, I run the rsync command with the delete option to clean up. It’s not a perfect backup by any means, especially since I could erroneously delete something right before that second rsync command and lose it for good. But it does provide a measure of safety.

Open ##2801045