How can rsync be used on NTFS and is versioning possible using hardlink just like in Linux?

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Rsync can be used on NTFS by running it in a Cygwin environment or by using a port of rsync for Windows. One popular port is cwRsync, which is a free and easy-to-use version of rsync that runs on Windows.

Versioning with hardlinks is possible on NTFS, but it requires some extra steps. Unlike Linux, which supports hardlinks natively, NTFS does not have built-in support for hardlinks. However, the NTFS file system does support symbolic links, which can be used to create similar functionality to hardlinks.

To implement versioning using hardlinks on NTFS, you would need to create a script that uses rsync to back up your files to a separate folder. The script would then create symbolic links between the backup folder and the original folder, using the --link-dest option in rsync.

By using symbolic links in this way, you can create a series of snapshot backups of your files, with each snapshot containing only the changes from the previous snapshot. Because the symbolic links point to the same file on the hard drive, no additional disk space is needed for each snapshot, making this an efficient way to implement versioning on NTFS with rsync.