Rob
My needs & usage of rsync are slightly different to yours but I have played
about with it a lot and done so with the intention of making files and
backups to both Linux and Windows XP machines - so here's my thoughts on it:
1. Again, bear in mind that I'm backing up files on either a Linux server or
Linux NAS to usually a USB hard disk but I format the USB disk to FAT32, not
NTFS. I use Gentoo Linux and here is their Wiki on setting up FUSE and
NTFS-3G on it, you should be able to apply the hints to your distro of
choice:
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/NTFS-3G
The problem I have with NTFS on Linux is that I know it is supposed to be
reliable if using FUSE (and not the internal kernel support) but there are
security concerns with it. I don't want to have to backup as root, I want to
do so as a normal user - with NTFS-3G that means setting up a SUID bits
which immediately creates a security hole on the system.
So for a file system that is compatible both with Linux and Windows, I use
FAT32 - and if I had to create a partition on a dual-boot Linux/Windows box
for file storage, then I would also make that FAT32 as well so that it can
be mounted easily in Linux.
2. FAT32, by default, has problems with file permissions and can never
handle a file bigger than 2GB in size. For the second issue, the only way
around that is to split the file into chunks less than 2GB in size, For the
file permissions issue, I use rsync parameters as follows:
rsync -rltDv --delete --modify-window=1 /linux-source-dir/
/windows-fat32-dest-dir/
The above stops any rsync errors due to file permissions.
Incidentally, here is how I mount the FAT32 disk onto Linux - note that I
mount that as my normal user (uid=1000) and group (gid=1000), and mounting
it in /media puts it into Gnome's automounting control and puts an icon on
the desktop automatically:
/dev/wd /media/wd auto
users,noatime,noauto,shortname=mixed,uid=1000,gid=1000
0 0
3. I format my USB drives as FAT32 in Windows, but Microsoft put a stupid
and meaningless limit on FAT32 partitions which restricts them to around
150GB or so (don't quote me on that but it's around that level). FAT32
actually supports 4TB (or something similar) for partition sizes, the
solution therefore is to use a tool called "fat32format" and just format the
drive at the Windows command line, instead of using the Disk Manager.
You can get fat32format free here:
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm
4. I know NTFS is a better filesystem and has journalling built in whereas
FAT32 doesn't, but in my case I'm backing up to USB hard disks that are
rarely plugged into a PC or media player to be used directly. But it's also
worse mentioning that just about every camera, phone, media player, etc. out
there supports FAT32 but probably won't support NTFS. So, personally, I keep
NTFS partitions exclusively for Windows OS partitions but nothing else.
5. A few years ago I did play about with DeltaCopy, an rsync GUI program for
Windows that is built on Cygwin. It did work very well and didn't seem to be
particularly slow so you may want to take a look at that:
http://www.aboutmyip.com/AboutMyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp
It is free, by the way.
---
I hope that helps and at least gives you some options. I'm certainly
interested in hearing from other members here how they do this stuff because
there doesn't seem to be one single solution that suits every possible
circumstance - but the above is the way I do it and it works well for me.
Regards
Peter
On 7 August 2011 12:41, Rob Malpass <linux@???> wrote:
> Hi all****
>
> ** **
>
> A bit of expertise on rsync (and seemingly its windows equivalent robocopy)
> please. I'm trying to build a mirror of this huge store of files I have -
> currently ~750Gb so any differential copying method will save a huge amount
> of time as each file is around 10Gb.****
>
> ** **
>
> After (shamefully admits years of being too frightened by the syntax!) I've
> just found out that****
>
> ** **
>
> rsync -avz source dest****
>
> ** **
>
> is all I need. Therein lies a bit of my concern - I have two nagging
> problems:****
>
> ** **
>
> 1) rsync is much faster than robocopy. Also does anyone know of a good
> GUI for rsync? With around 100Gb to replicate each time I do it - I could
> use a progress indicator (beyond using the --progress switch).****
>
> 2) The files are being created on an XP machine and the filesystem on
> source and dest is ntfs. As such I'm getting files (when I see them in
> Nautilus etc) as ****
>
> ** **
>
> "An /Example/ Of/ Something.mpg"****
>
> ** **
>
> If rsync is copying these, do I have anything to worry about when I put the
> dest back into a windows machine?****
>
> ** **
>
> Cheers****
>
> Rob****
>
> --
> Please post to: Hampshire@???
> Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
> LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
