Rsync seems to erase EXIF data from photos

Question

Trying to set up a simple backup solution for my wife's computer. Have a volume on my server upstairs mounted locally using OSX automount, so it should just be a simple

rsync -a sourceDir targetDir

When I look at the files it syncs over though, all metadata is lost on jpg files. The created date is preserved on the file and the modified date ends up being the timestamp when the rsync runs, but I can't imagine why EXIF data (Device, exposure etc) would disappear when it should just be a straight file copy. Hoping someone has run into this before and can shed some light on it.

Answer 1

This can't be a rsync problem, there should be something else going on. rsync just does a binary copy from source to destination, the most probable explanation is a simple user error (e.g. you copied from the wrong source directory, source files where already without EXIF data, and so on).

For normal copies on reliable hardware, rsync is without doubt the best tool for the job, especially considering the huge amount of filesystems it has to cope with.

There are some corner cases where rsync may not behave as it should, at least with default parameters. For example, right now I'm investigating on an issue where, copying to a "not-so-reliable" USB drive, rsync continued to copy happily even when the drive disconnected from USB and the device disappeared.