Re: rsync 10 times slower in Etch than in Sarge!

[Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com>]

On 2008-01-18 15:32 +0100, Rodolfo Medina wrote:

>> I do my daily backup with the following command:
>>
>>  $ rsync -vr --delete Mail News /mnt/sda
>>
>> (where `sda' is the pendrive), and I've calculated that in my new Debian
>> Etch system the process is about 10 times slower than it was in Sarge!
>> It is the same with both my desktop PC and my laptop.  In /etc/fstab I
>> have the following entry:
>>
>>  /dev/sda        /mnt/sda 	vfat    sync,rw,user,noauto  0       0
>>
>> .  The backup that would take only a few minutes now takes almost one
>> hour!  Can anybody please explain this strange phenomena?



Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de> writes:

> IIRC it's an issue with vfat file systems and the "sync" mount option in
> 2.6 kernels.  I noticed the same phenomenon when I switched from 2.4 to
> 2.6;

I see...


> the solution is not to use the "sync" option, that also increases
> your drive's lifetime.

I put the `sync' option just to avoid drive corruption.  If it is
necessary to toggle it off, how can I be sure the process is terminated
before I unmount the drive?



> You may want to add "sync" as the last command in
> your backup script do avoid data loss.

I looked into `sync' manual but couldn't find out how to use this
command.  What should I say instead of
`rsync -vr --delete Mail News /mnt/sda'?


Thanks for your help
Rodolfo