How to speed up rsync?

If you're using rsync with a fast network or disk to disk in the same machine,

not using compression -z

and using --inplace

speeds it up to the performance of the harddrives or network

compression uses lots of CPU

not using inplace makes the harddrive thrash alot (it uses a temp file before creating the final)

compression & not using inplace is better for doing it over the internet (slow network)

NEW: Be aware of the destination... if there is NTFS "compression" enabled... this severely slows down large files (I'd say 200MB+) rsync almost seems stalled, it's caused by this.

For the first sync just use

cp -a  /mysourcefolder /mytargetfolder

rsync only adds overhead when the destination is empty.

also.. the -z option is probably killing your performance, you shouldn't be using it if you are not transfering data over a slow link.

Use the -W option. This disables delta/diff comparisons. When the file time/sizes differ, rsync copies the whole file.

Also remove the -z option. This is only useful for compressing network traffic.

Now rsync should be as fast as cp.