[gentoo-user] rsync + tar + bz2 ?

[Grant]

I'm backing up numerous large files on another machine on my local
network.  I've only been using rsync, but it occured to me that I
might be able to save some time and space if I incorporate tar and
bzip2.  How will rsync interact with those?  If I turn the whole
backup into a big tar.bz2, would rsync need to redownload the whole
thing if I change one file?  If so, maybe I should turn different
groups of files into tar.bz2 archives so rsync only needs to
redownload an archive if one of its files has changed?

- Grant