size of repository with many branches, vs. git

[Dov Feldstern]

Well, I've discovered part of the problem, and it's *not* mercurial's 
fault (though git somehow managed to cope with this): apparently, LyX's 
trunk/branches/tags layout isn't totally standard: under branches, there 
is one directory which is not itself a branch, but rather a directory 
containing directories containing branches 
(http://www.lyx.org/trac/browser/lyx-devel/branches/personal). However, 
convert identified this as just another branch, so we got a branch 
called 'personal' with a manifest of 14000 files --- because it 
contained multiple copies of the tree in it...

Is there any way to tell convert how to deal with this kind of situation 
(where there are branches at branches/b1, branches/b2, 
branches/personal/b3, branches/personal/b4, ...)? Perhaps by providing 
an explicit list of the paths of the branches?

Anyhow, I will try to clean this up, and then see what the situation is; 
and I'll try to provide some of the numbers that you've requested.

Meanwhile, thanks all for your help!
Dov