On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 12:37:34PM -0600, John Knutson wrote:
> Does anyone out there have any experience using rsync  to copy HDF5
> files?  I've been trying to use rsync to make back-ups of hdf5 files
> as they grow, but instead of the expected fairly constant time
> required for each update, the rsync time increases as the HDF5 file
> grows.  This suggests to me that rsync is re-transferring data
> instead of just transferring differences.  That, or as I add data to
> the HDF5 file, changes are being made to numerous locations in the
> file.

are you transferring locally, like to an external hard drive?

rsync's -W (whole file) option says this:

   This  [-W] is  the default  when both the source and destination
   are specified as local paths, but only if no batch-writing option
   is in effect.

Does the '--no-whole-file' option help at all?

==rob

> 
> I thought maybe the problem was that the time spent doing checksums
> was causing the increase as the files grew in size, but the rsync
> output indicates a linear increase in actual data transferred as
> well, just like the run time.
> 
> The files in question contain multiple data sets that are being
> updated, each of which is stored as chunked, compressed data.
> 
> The only thing I can think of to fiddle with on the rsync end is the
> checksum block size, and try and make it more like the size of
> blocks in the HDF5 file, which is an unknown to me at the moment.
> 
> Alternately, I can make the files smaller, but that would not be my
> first choice as it would be a major design change.
> 
> If anyone has any suggestions as to how to resolve this "creeping
> transfer time" issue, I'd appreciate it.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Hdf-forum is for HDF software users discussion.
> [email protected]
> http://mail.hdfgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/hdf-forum_hdfgroup.org

-- 
Rob Latham
Mathematics and Computer Science Division
Argonne National Lab, IL USA

_______________________________________________
Hdf-forum is for HDF software users discussion.
[email protected]
http://mail.hdfgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/hdf-forum_hdfgroup.org

Reply via email to