single rsync of large directory structure versus several smaller rsync's

[Pete Mocat]

Hello,

I am working on a backup script using rsync and have a question.

Rather than doing a single rsync of /home/ I have set my script up
to loop over /etc/passwd and do a seperate rsync of each user home dir 
(/home/user1, /home/user2) etc.

In the end, I should have the exact same backup either way. However I feel 
safest doing it as multiple rsyncs (one for each user). I am doing this 
because I want to avoid a case in which some fatal error on a particular dir 
kills off the whole rsync. For example, given:

/home/adoe
/home/jdoe
/home/zdoe

If I do:

rsync -vaze ssh /home/

I am afraid that if /home/adoe had a fatel error (one that kills rsync) all 
dirs past it would not be backed up and given an over-worked sysadmin 
(never!) we might miss the error until the day we need the backups.

If I do a seperate:

rsync -vaze ssh /home/adoe
rsync -vaze ssh /home/jdoe
rsync -vaze ssh /home/zdoe

etc.

I should still have a backup of each dir even if some fail.

Is this being too paranoid?

Is there something built into rsync to avoid this?

Does anyone have any better ideas for me? I want to make the best use of 
rsync possible.

Thanks for your advice and comments!



_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail