Also, I find that if I'm going to copy the data once, I'm often going to copy it twice, or which to get a more up to date version of it at a later time. Rsync clearly wins in these cases.
Finally, from the compress flag on rsync:
Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.
Also, I find that if I'm going to copy the data once, I'm often going to copy it twice, or which to get a more up to date version of it at a later time. Rsync clearly wins in these cases.
Finally, from the compress flag on rsync: Note that this option typically achieves better compression ratios than can be achieved by using a compressing remote shell or a compressing transport because it takes advantage of the implicit information in the matching data blocks that are not explicitly sent over the connection.