# git and binary files 3 messages from 2010-07-28 to 2010-07-28. Participants: Jan Dittmer, Matthieu Moy, Avery Pennarun. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/24558 ## Jan Dittmer, 2010-07-28 14:17 Subject: git and binary files Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTikceXUDDDcisnJRzg_i8mbi0TGwGiE5znAaK2aM%40mail.gmail.com ``` Hi, I'm using git to keep track of directories full of jpegs and movies (19 GB .git directory, 5825 files, 18+ GB). I now that this is also possible with rsync and friends, but I like to have full version control and history, so please no discussion about that. The problem I'm facing is, that 'git status' is very very slow. They seem to read through every file in the directory tree. Is it possible to tell git to just use mtime/size information for an initial guess? I already tried to turn of rename detection with diff.renames=false, but still the problem remains. Any hint? git version is 1.7.1. Thanks, Jan -- Jan Dittmer ``` ## Matthieu Moy, 2010-07-28 14:29 Subject: Re: git and binary files Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/vpqwrsf1xz0.fsf%40bauges.imag.fr In-Reply-To: ``` Jan Dittmer writes: > The problem I'm facing is, that 'git status' is very > very slow. They seem to read through every file in the directory > tree. Is it possible to tell git to just use mtime/size information for > an initial guess? This is what it does by default. You probably need an initial "git status" to be slow to get this information right in the index, though. Have a look at git-bigfiles too. -- Matthieu Moy http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/ ``` ## Avery Pennarun, 2010-07-28 20:17 Subject: Re: git and binary files Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTiktAjui6%3DPECv8jFx7_0Suqv5sY%3DR9t4q1Jz%2BBe%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Matthieu Moy wrote: > Jan Dittmer writes: >> The problem I'm facing is, that 'git status' is very >> very slow. They seem to read through every file in the directory >> tree. Is it possible to tell git to just use mtime/size information for >> an initial guess? > > This is what it does by default. You probably need an initial "git > status" to be slow to get this information right in the index, though. Judging from the description, it sounds like 'git status' is the problem, not the solution. Although at 18 GB, it was probably pretty slow to run, so maybe Jan only ran it once and the second time it would have been fast :) Depending on what the requirements are (ie. just keeping multiple versions for posterity/safety as opposed to actually checking out old versions on a regular basis), bup might be more useful than git in this case: http://github.com/apenwarr/bup . Have fun, Avery ```