Memory consumption for rsync -axv --delete

[John Long]

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 11:16:47AM -0400, Kevin Korb wrote:

> If you were using --link-dest to make multiple backups you wouldn't
> need --delete because the target is always a new empty directory (with
> - --link-dest pointing to the previous backup run).

The source is around 200G and the target box only has 500G total and some of
it is used for other data. What I want to do is mirror the source on the
target and be able to prune the files that get deleted from the source from
the target also. I don't have enough space to back up the whole thing and
that is very time consuming anyway over 100M/b link which is why I was using
--delete. For a long time it was ok, but now I don't have enough RAM.

There is one giant directory that is probably problematic because it has a
huge number of files. I suspect this is the one that's causing me problems
but it is relatively static. I suppose it could be backed up and cleaned up
separately.

Is there any way to reduce RAM consumption on the target box while still
getting the benefit of the --delete function? I am thinking of trying to
back up everything but the gigantic directory with a large number of files,
and then backing up only that directory. Is this a reasonable strategy? I
just couldn't understand if --delete with --exclude would delete files from
the target outside the --exclude path. I guess the answer is no but it would
be a very time consuming mistake. I'm trying to make sure before I try it.

Thanks for your help and I'm sorry for my poorly worded post(s). 

/jl

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