RSYNC – Fastest Way to Download a Clone of any directory

RSYNC is the fastest way to clone and sync directories from any server.
Below is an rsync example using ssh tunneling on port 2222 to a server using cPanel, thus the exclusion of the .cpanel and public_ftp. /home/user is the folder to clone/sync to /Volumes/HardDrive/BackupLocation. And a log file is created to log any issues at /Library/Logs/rsync.log.

rsync -az6 --delete -e "ssh -p 2222" --exclude 'public_ftp' --exclude '.cpanel' user@site.com:/home/user /Volumes/HardDrive/BackupLocation > /Library/Logs/rsync.log

The ‘az6’ flags stand for a – archive, z – compress, 6 – IP 6 and e – using a remote shell. You can read about more flags and options on the rsync man page.

If you know of a faster way to sync/clone a directory, please leave a comment below.