Sparse File Support for rsync
From time to time one needs to migrate large amounts of data from one file system to another, such as when migrating to a new hard disk, setting up a RAID array or migrating a file system from ext3 to ext4. Each time this happens I find myself googling for the exact rsync command to do the sync operation and each time the command line parameters mentioned in most search results neglect the existence of sparse files. So, mostly as a note to myself, here is the rsync command line I tend to use when replicating data to a new file system (including sparse file support):
rsync -aqxPSH _source_ _destination_