Is it possible to make rsync VMware split .vmdk's aware?

[Matt McCutchen]

On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 09:02 +0100, Bas Bahlmann || Steady IT
Systeembeheer wrote:
> -         I am making a local copy with vmware-vdiskmanager to an USB
> disk in the split “thin-disk” format of the vmdk’s
> 
> -         Then I start rsync to our datacenter to replicate the split
> “thin-disk” vmdk’s

> Sometimes, because of the defragment within the VM or Exchange, the
> disk layout changes so much that a split .vmdk file that was very
> little and now becomes filled with 2Gb data. As a result rsync has to
> transfer 2Gb of data for that .vmdk which takes a lot of time. In my
> opnion that’s not nessesary because the data is probably available in
> another split .vmdk because it was moved across the virtual disk.

> Is it possible to make an option in Rsync which reads out the vmdk
> config file for the split disks so it can search for known data across
> all the split .vmdk files within one virtual disk?

Specific support for VMware split images would be way too
special-purpose to justify putting it in the main version of rsync.  A
more general option to make each file transfer use multiple basis files
(or even all the existing destination files) may be reasonable.  You
could join this enhancement request, which I might then reopen:

https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5954

But in this scenario, why are you using a split image?  Does it have
some advantage over a monolithic image (with which rsync would Just
Work)?

-- 
Matt