Sorry I'm a little late on this discussion - but if the original poster is watching, I'd like to hear your response.

What happens if files on the client are changing while the rsync is in progress? It seems like it would be possible to end up with a partially corrupt backup of your TM files if those files themselves changed while the rsync was in progress. And I have to imagine that a 150 GB rsync takes quite a while, so it seems that you're really banking a lot on the TM backups themselves not to change.

If this an issue, perhaps a solution would be a little script that puts TM in manual mode during the rsync - but then you have to worry that TM doesn't get properly re-set to automatic mode.

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Just set up the cron job to run rsync at a time the user isn't likely to be there. Also, this puts rsync bandwidth usage to an idle time. For example, use a time between 1 AM and 5 AM.



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Steve Holland

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I don't think files changing is an issue here since (correct me if I'm wrong) no files or directories will ever change in a TM backup. TM will only add new files or directories (or hard links) and remove expired ones. What I think could happen is that you might only get a partial copy of the latest backup in the event TM is currently doing its work but that should be fixed with the next rsync.

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From what I can tell, as the other person said, Time Machine only adds and deletes and doesn't change any files in the backup. And you should probably schedule your rsync for after hours and since no files should be changing when the user isn't there, TM shouldn't interfere with the rsync. But if someone with more knowledge than me can post the commands to check if TM is currently backing up, wait until it's finished, turn it off, run the rsync command, then turn TM back on, I'll gladly add it. I would like to be sure also that the backups are solid.



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