Rsync: can it handle any and all file formats?
 

Hello

Our company uses rsync to backup data between our servers. Does anyone know of any file formats which rsync cannot deal with when it does incremental backups? With incremental backups, it obviously just appends changes/new bits to a file, so is there a chance that it cannot deal with a particular file type?

For example, it works fine with MS Word/Excel etc. Does it work fine with Illustrator/Paint shop etc files, which are images, instead of words?

What about more business critical files like our Sage accounts files and payrol files? Can rsync still append incremental changes without corrupting a file?

I would like to hear anyones experiences on whether they have ever come accross files which rsync cannot incrementally backup.

Kind regards, and thanks for reading
Hamish

I don't think that's true. When backup software (or rsync in this case) runs an incremental backup, when it detects that a file has changed it grabs the entire file. It doesn't take only the changed piece of it.

In light of this, rsync should have no trouble with any of the files you've described. There is always one way to be really sure: test it.

Hey

Maybe I mean differential in that case (but I'm sure it is incremental). I do know that we backup Outlook.pst files and they are not all resent each evening. Only the new information is added onto the existing backup file.

Hamish

I am not familiar with Outlook.pst files - perhaps they're ASCII text and taking only part of the file is feasible. In any case, rsync will take the whole file.