Keep large directory structures in sync quickly with rsync
While tar over ssh is ideal for making remote copies of parts of a filesystem, rsync is even better suited for keeping the filesystem in sync between two machines. Typically, tar is used for the initial copy, and rsync is used to pick up whatever has changed since the last copy. This is because tar tends to be faster than rsync when none of the destination files exist, but rsync is much faster than tar when there are only a few differences between the two filesystems.
