Use (or not) of hard links

[John]

I am not subscribed to this list.

I anticipated that with this set of options
rsync --recursive --links --hard-links --perms --owner --group \ 
--devices --times --sparse --one-file-system --rsh=/usr/bin/ssh \ 
--delete   --delete-excluded --delete-after --max-delete=80 --relative \ 
--stats --numeric-ids

that rsync would not only preserve hard links but also exploit them in 
not sending files which are hard links from existing files.

Logically, I don't see any difference in complexity in spotting existing 
  hard links before the copy.

If hard links are not possible at the target (not so in my case) then a 
file copy at the destination beats transferring source to dest over a 
network.

Anyway, despite my expectations I see a transfer of a Debian netinst ISO 
is apparently being transferred despite being a hard link of an existing 
file.