mystery data fills my target disk

[Arlo Leach]

Hello,

I'm trying to use rsync to periodically restore a test computer from a
master disk image on a separate partition. The first time I copy the data
from the master partition to the target partition, everything works as
expected. But if I do the operation again, rsync indicates that it is
copying lots of files that have not changed. More significantly, the disk
usage on the target volume gradually increases throughout the operation
until the disk fills up and rsync quits.

I understand the use of the in-place option, but I don't think that would
help in my case. I'm not seeing a temporary increase in disk usage during
copies, which then goes away when the copied file replaces the original.
Rather, I'm seeing a cumulative increase in disk usage that eventually
exceeds the total size of my files.

What's puzzling is that I can't figure out where all this data is going.
After the sync operation quits, I don't see duplicate files anywhere. The
disk is full, but the sizes of my directories are what they should be.

I'm running Mac OS 10.4.8, and I've encountered the same behavior with the
bundled version 2.6.3, the version 2.6.0 binary included with rsyncx, and
the current version 2.6.9 that I downloaded and compiled today. Here's my
rsync command:

/usr/local/bin/rsync --progress -aEv --delete --recursive --exlude-from
"/Users/compyschool/Library/Scripts/nightly restore - exclusions.txt"
"/Volumes/Compy 1 master/" "/Volumes/Compy 1"

Is this behavior familiar to anyone? Can you see anything wrong with my
command that might be causing it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

-Arlo

_______________________________

Arlo Leach
773.769.6106
http://arlomedia.com

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