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Tip #492   Moving large directories

Why not use cp or mv to move /usr/home to /storage/export/home? Weird things happen to hard and softlinks when you mv or cp. Try it and remember that a mv between different filesystems is actually a copy and delete.

Try this instead: 
# tar -C /usr -cf - home | tar -C /storage/export -xvf -

Or, to copy to a remote machine: 
# tar -C /usr -cf - home | ssh user@somemachine tar -C /storage/export -xvf -

You may want to add the -z switch to the tar commands. It will add compression but it depends on the type of data and your connection speed if it really improves transfer speeds.
 
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