Transferring large files using rsync

[Seann Herdejurgen]

I am running into an issue with rsync that I need some help with.  When syncing
large files (e.g. 1GB), the rsync algorithm creates a temporary 1GB file and
then renames it when the transfer is finished.  The issue I am running into is
if the two large files have very few differences between them, the bottleneck is
creating the 1GB temporary file on the target box.  This process takes several
minutes.  Is there a way to tell rsync to update files "in place" and not create
a temporary file?  I realize that I can corrupt my target file this way, but if
I do, I can just re-sync when rsync catches an error.

Regards,
Seann Herdejurgen
seann at herdejurgen.com

P.S. Using Linux, if rsync core dumps, how can I find out what caused rsync to
crash?