RSync is a great tool for archiving and backup. But how do you get it to cope with connection problems? For example, you are trying to backup a large archive file but you have a poor connection which keeps dropping and so your transfer has to start all over again. Well here’s what I use:

rsync -avz --progress --partial -e ssh /home/mybackup/* <email address>@<rsync host>:<remote folder name>

Note that the email address does not require quote marks around it. Notice I do not use –append or –append-verify. If I did it would assume that the start of the file has remained the same (which might be the case for a log file or similar). This isn’t the case for me. I also don’t use the –delete option because this would simply delete the temporary file left by –partial.

It works a treat but I would recommend a break of 15 minutes when attempting to resume the transfer (the time will vary depending upon how the remote server deals with temporary files).

For more on this and a very useful bash script, have a look here:
http://superuser.com/questions/302842/resume-rsync…