File diffeerences with rsync

voyager2014 · 03-18-2014, 05:13 PM

Hi,
I try to backup a lot of binary files from dir1 to dir2, music files, pictures, etc
I use rsync -av dir1/ dir2, so far so good.

After running diff dir1/ dir2/ it outputs that there still are differences in some files. Where is it going wrong? the files in both directories diff complains about have the same date and the same length, still they differ and it is not noticed by rsync.

I googled for hours but did not find any resolution.

astrogeek · 03-18-2014, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by voyager2014

Hi,
I try to backup a lot of binary files from dir1 to dir2, music files, pictures, etc
I use rsync -av dir1/ dir2, so far so good.

After running diff dir1/ dir2/ it outputs that there still are differences in some files. Where is it going wrong? the files in both directories diff complains about have the same date and the same length, still they differ and it is not noticed by rsync.

I googled for hours but did not find any resolution.

rsync uses timestamp and size for comparison so it will miss these. See man rsyns, --checksum.

What is the diff command that you are using?

voyager2014 · 03-19-2014, 05:43 PM

the --checksum (or -c) option did the trick. It makes the rsync process much slower, of course, but at least I have an exact copy of my original files. Many thanks Astrogeek!