(Solved) grsync vs rsync vs FreefileSync for Mint21/22

[JohnJ]

Greetings all.
I need to copy (not move) a large batch (about 550gb) of data files from a partitioned removable SSD to my onboard partitioned HDD data area/s on my PC and on my partitioned SSD Laptop. Both have Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia with Cinnamon 6.0.4 desktop. I could do this via FreeFileSync but once it gets to 80gb plus things really start to slow down and continue to slow down to a painfully slow crawl, even a stop, as it gets closer to the end. So I am hoping grsync or rsync can do the job. My limited understanding of grsync/rsync is that this software is basically designed for a single folder backup. It can also do multiple folders but is there a limit because I need to copy many hundreds of folders and many hundreds of folders within folders, etc? I have a basic but quite limited understanding of doing stuff via the terminal and command line but I am able to copy and paste helpful command line text from others then with trepidation I press enter. I mention this because I am thinking maybe grsync would be easier for me to navigate.

So, my basic related questions are:
1. Can grsync/rsync on Mint 21/22 do the job copying the hundreds and hundreds of folders,sub folders,subsubfolders, etc totaling 550gb?
2. Is there another way to do what I am after?
Cheers John

 

[deb_user]

I realize I'm late to this, and the OP may be gone, or no longer interested, but anyhoo...
grsync is just a GUI frontend for rsync. Rsync can transfer as many directories as needed. It can transfer 550GB, but it will take a long time, probably several hours depending on the interface. Various iterations of USB have different transfer speeds, and USB3.1 gen 2 is many times faster than USB 2.0. Wireless transfer via a wifi LAN is going to be slow. If you want the easiest way to do this, use timeshift. You will need to modify the default configuration to transfer only the directories you want, since the default is to back up the entire system, which you probably don't want. But to me the choices are more intuitive and obvious than with grsync. However, grsync will certainly do the job. Both grsync and timeshift use rsync to do the transfers.

 

[JohnJ]

I realize I'm late to this, and the OP may be gone, or no longer interested, but anyhoo...
grsync is just a GUI frontend for rsync. Rsync can transfer as many directories as needed. It can transfer 550GB, but it will take a long time, probably several hours depending on the interface. Various iterations of USB have different transfer speeds, and USB3.1 gen 2 is many times faster than USB 2.0. Wireless transfer via a wifi LAN is going to be slow. If you want the easiest way to do this, use timeshift. You will need to modify the default configuration to transfer only the directories you want, since the default is to back up the entire system, which you probably don't want. But to me the choices are more intuitive and obvious than with grsync. However, grsync will certainly do the job. Both grsync and timeshift use rsync to do the transfers.

Thanks deb. Understood. Hadn't thought of using Timeshift and will keep your suggestions in mind. My challenge was to transfer my monster 250gb of data between my PC and laptop using a USB connected SSD. Both are pretty ancient - 15 years old. I am a big fan and frequent user of FreefileSync. I found that trying to transfer such a large amount of data slowed FreefileSync down to an absolute crawl to an almost stop. The mistake I made was to try and do this in one lump. I should have done this in more digestible lumps. Anyway, it was a good learning exercise. Cheers John

 

[deb_user]

FreeFileSync will be agonizingly slow, because from what I can tell it requires uploading the files to a website and then redownloading it to a different machine. Slow internet speeds, plus double transfers will take a very long time. Almost any other method will be faster. The fastest way would be two internal drives in the same machine, next would be a USB connection, either of those using rsync, regardless of which front-end you choose, be it through a terminal command-line, grsync, or timeshift. All three will take the same amount of time, it's just the interface that's different. A local transfer using wifi/ethernet would be perhaps a little slower, or perhaps not, depending on the equipment used. But if you want to use a cloud service, that's your choice. Whatever works.

 

[JohnJ]

FreeFileSync will be agonizingly slow, because from what I can tell it requires uploading the files to a website and then redownloading it to a different machine. Slow internet speeds, plus double transfers will take a very long time. Almost any other method will be faster. The fastest way would be two internal drives in the same machine, next would be a USB connection, either of those using rsync, regardless of which front-end you choose, be it through a terminal command-line, grsync, or timeshift. All three will take the same amount of time, it's just the interface that's different. But if you want to use a cloud service, that's your choice. Whatever works.

Understood. Cheers