rsync - Nov 2006 - Rsync resource consumption, whilst building a large file list

I need to rsync a large collection of files (images) that number in the 
1000's.  We have 2 repositories, one was mass-copied recently, the other 
has since had updates performed.   The initial copy took over 5 hours to 
complete ;-)  What we want is only to update the destination (old) copy 
with newer files, delete anything that shouldn't be there.

What I'm trying to determine is how rsync uses resources whilst building 
the comparison lists.

Does rsync build a file tree to a temp file, or is it doing this in memory?

I checked through the manpage, and didn't see anything that mentioned 
this - or did I overlook something.


Thanks.

On Wed 15 Nov 2006, Forrest Aldrich wrote:
> 
> Does rsync build a file tree to a temp file, or is it doing this in memory?
It does it in memory.
However, for less than a few hunderd thousand files it's nothing to
worry about, unless you're doing it on an embedded device or such :-)


Paul Slootman