-r, --recursive
This tells rsync to copy directories recursively. See also
--dirs (-d).
Beginning with rsync 3.0.0, the recursive algorithm used
is now an incremental scan that uses much less memory
than before and begins the transfer after the scanning of
the first few directories have been completed. This
incremental scan only affects our recursion algorithm, and
does not change a non-recursive transfer. It is also only
possible when both ends of the transfer are at least
version 3.0.0.
Some options require rsync to know the full file list, so
these options disable the incremental recursion mode.
These include: --delete-before, --delete-after,
--prune-empty-dirs, and --delay-updates. Because of this,
the default delete mode when you specify --delete is now
--delete-during when both ends of the connec‐ tion are at
least 3.0.0 (use --del or --delete-during to request this
improved deletion mode explicitly). See also the
--delete-delay option that is a better choice than using
--delete-after.
Incremental recursion can be disabled using the
--no-inc-recursive option or its shorter --no-i-r alias.
[^] # Re: Tout se fait en même temps
Posté par Matthieu Moy (site web personnel) . En réponse au message Rsync avec calcul des checksums simultanément. Évalué à 3.
Un peu plus d'infos sur la question dans le man :