--delete not working - due to 200+G of files?

[Eric Praetzel]

All of the rsync pages say that "rsync -a --delete src dest" will do a
full mirror but it just isn't so for us.

I've only found one Google item similar:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/rsync-doesnt-seem-to-delete-599985/

We have around 9200 directories in 250G in /home on a Sun 4500 with
Solaris 8 and rsync 2.6.5 - which we are trying to mirror on Sun and Linux.

Around 1,200 directories were removed from /home but they were not removed
from the mirrors after rsync ran.  We have tried:

1) rsync, via rsh, to a second similar machine
	rsync -az -e rsh --delete /home Solaris_box_2:/home2

2) rsync, via ssh and via port 873 to a Centos 5.0 box with rsync 2.6.9

rsync -a -e ssh --delete Solaris_box:/ /home

ssh Solaris_box "cd /home;rsync -az --force --delete * Centos_Box::remote_mach"
ssh Solaris_box "rsync -az --force --delete /home Centos_Box::remote_mach"

In all cases rsyncing the original file system copies all files; but files
and directories removed are not reliably removed from the rsync mirror.

It takes around 4 hours to build a file list - blech!


On Centos_Box (rsync Solaris NFS mount to local mirror)
	 rsync -azv --delete /Solaris_NFS_mount/* /home

root at CentosBox# ls /home | wc; ls /Solaris_NFS_mount | wc
   9338    9338   72420
   7168    7168   55792

Try Solaris to Solaris:
rsync -az -e rsh --delete /home Solaris_box_2:/home2

root at Solaris_box_2 ls /home2 | wc; ls /home | wc
    8925    8925   78292
    7168    7168   62960

Yea they're all in various stages of dirtyness.

Does anyone have a clue what's up?

Is this an issue with the amount of data (250G) or the number of files
aprox 750,000) we have?

Thanks,

 - Eric