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Yeah, you're right that in this case SVN would have a smaller checkout size. So if this is something that you need then SVN would be a clear winner here in terms of disk storage.

However, with the more typical usage pattern of a repository of mostly code and perhaps a handful of smallish binary files, Git is almost always going to have a smaller checkout size despite including the version history.

I also think in this case the difference is like being shot in the stomach, or being shot in the knee. Both SVN and Git are going to give you serious pain.




In the name of science I'm converting the Mibbit repos from svn to git to see what the size difference actually is on a typical repos (I don't have videos in there ;)

Be interesting to see if svn is really that inefficient...

Who knows, maybe I'll try a few git commands :/


Awesome, it'll be interesting to see the results. Make sure you do

git repack -a -d -f --window=100 --depth=100

after converting from svn to git. Otherwise you'll have a lot of artifacts from the conversion lying around and the git repo will be HUGE.

(taken from http://marc.info/?l=git&m=120734745806416)


Thanks. I'll have a go. I'd be really surprised and impressed if the git repos is smaller than an svn checkout,

EDIT: Here's the results...

Subversion repository: 80M A Subversion checkout: 172M Git version: 121M

I'm surprised the subversion checkout is quite a bit larger, but it's not really enough to make me care all that much yet...

I do conceed that git compresses things well, although it's still quite a bit larger than the original svn repository.


I think the fact that SVN adds almost 100 megs of crap to your checkout does suck. But yeah, I don't think it's a deal breaker. I switched to Git for the features; the smaller "checkout" sizes was just an additional benefit.

Thanks for posting your results, I think it's very cool that you are not a Git fan but took the time to really look into it.


If you want to compare repository sizes you should compare the size of .git directory only.




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