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I am trying to copy a .tar.gz file from a remote host. If I mount that host using Krusader and copy it takes a lot of time. However, if I use rsync, it is about 5-6 times faster. How come? Is there a way that I can take advantage of this speed while still be using Krusader (or a similar tool)?

3 Answers 3

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if I use rsync, it is about 5-6 times faster. How come?

A few things:

  • rsync uses a clever algorithm to compute a binary diff between two files on different machines and to send only the differences
  • it tries very hard to keep the tcp pipe totally full, whereas sftp or other protocols can sometimes stall waiting for earlier data to arrive
  • rsync is smart about gzipping files that are likely to benefit from it

To say more means knowing more about the specific situation and what you're comparing it to.

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Rsync was made specifically for speed and conservation of bandwidth. There a GUI front end for rsync called grsync.

sudo apt-get install grsync
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Another thing that might be of interest:

If the remote machine is running a rsyncd daemon, rsync is able to transfer data without using ssh encryption which is likely to be much faster, at least over gigabit ethernet or even faster connections (even fast cpus today can only encrypt/decrypt about 30-40 megabytes/second on standard ssh settings (on one core), whereas gigabit ethernet should be able to transfer about 90 megabytes/second).

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