Which files should be excluded in an rsync backup (with macOS Big Sur / version 11.5.1)?

Solution 1:

Using rsync to copy files to an NTFS drive will not provide a seamless recovery.

• File and Folder metadata will be lost along with aliases, symlinks, etc.
• Recovering applications, settings and state information will be largely lost and would require careful copying of files stored in /Library and ~/Library.
• Any use of iCloud would need to be reestablished.
• I am doubtful that you would able to recover the libraries used by the Photos and Music libraries to the state they were before disaster.

The best you will be able to do is to recover files in folders such as ~/Documents.

The standard exclusions used by Time Machine as that would leave you rsync-ing lots of files that would not provide recovery to the original state of the Mac.

Rather that looking for exclusions, I suggest that you need to first look at inclusions and determine what, potentially, can be recovered.

If using rsync you should limit your expectations to recovery of most data files, but without much of the state information stored in file metadata and /Library and ~/Library.

Regarding your second sub-question: /System/Volumes/Data/Users and /Users are the same thing.

Strong recommendation:

• For a seamless disaster recovery, you need to use a backup program which is aware of macOS data structures. That would be Time Machine or third-party products like Carbon Copy Cloner or Chronosync.