I have one external USB hard drive I use as a backup of an internal hard
drive in the PC. Although I have occasionally used Clonezilla to simply
back up the files to the external HD, I thought it might go much quicker
if I simply dragged and dropped from the PC drive to the external drive,
but this isn't going as expected.

What I've been trying to do is to simply select all folders on the
internal drive and then copy and paste them onto the external hd.
Because there are already folders present on the external hd from a
prior back up, when I am presented with the pop up asking if I want to
merge the files with the existing, I simply select no, apply to all
files and skip. However, much to my surprise, some or all of the new
files aren't being saved to the external drive.

Correcting this would be welcome and thanks in advance.

On 9/8/22 14:39, wAYNE wrote:
> I have one external USB hard drive I use as a backup of an internal hard
> drive in the PC. Although I have occasionally used Clonezilla to simply
> back up the files to the external HD, I thought it might go much quicker
> if I simply dragged and dropped from the PC drive to the external drive,
> but this isn't going as expected.
>
> What I've been trying to do is to simply select all folders on the
> internal drive and then copy and paste them onto the external hd.
> Because there are already folders present on the external hd from a
> prior back up, when I am presented with the pop up asking if I want to
> merge the files with the existing, I simply select no, apply to all
> files and skip. However, much to my surprise, some or all of the new
> files aren't being saved to the external drive.
>
> Correcting this would be welcome and thanks in advance.
>

Stop doing that. Use rsync or something similar that's actually made for
this type of work.

On 09/09/2022 04:08, stepore wrote:

> Stop doing that. Use rsync or something similar that's actually made for
> this type of work.

I stopped doing that when I found that it messed up modification dates
and permissions. At the very least you need to use cp or rsync with the
-a option.

D.

On 9/8/22 17:39, wAYNE wrote:
> I have one external USB hard drive I use as a backup of an internal hard drive in the PC.  Although I have occasionally used Clonezilla to simply back up the files to the external HD, I thought it might go much quicker if I simply dragged and dropped from the PC drive to the external drive, but this isn't going as expected.
>
> What I've been trying to do is to simply select all folders on the internal drive and then copy and paste them onto the external hd. Because there are already folders present on the external hd from a prior back up, when I am presented with the pop up asking if I want to merge the files with the existing, I simply select no, apply to all files and skip.  However, much to my surprise, some or all of the new files aren't being saved to the external drive.
>
> Correcting this would be welcome and thanks in advance.
>

For small source partitions I prefer dd to everything/anything else. It gives me an image file I can mount and recover things from or recover the entire partition. I don't know if there's anything that rsync -ahcEWXd will not copy but do know that it could never be accused of being fast. My money says speed is not a consideration for a backup, I start it and go to bed. In the morning it's "...done". HTH

On 9/8/2022 5:39 PM, wAYNE wrote:
> I have one external USB hard drive I use as a backup of an internal hard drive in the PC.  Although I have occasionally used Clonezilla to simply back up the files to the external HD, I thought it might go much quicker if I simply dragged and dropped from the PC drive to the external drive, but this isn't going as expected.
>
> What I've been trying to do is to simply select all folders on the internal drive and then copy and paste them onto the external hd. Because there are already folders present on the external hd from a prior back up, when I am presented with the pop up asking if I want to merge the files with the existing, I simply select no, apply to all files and skip.  However, much to my surprise, some or all of the new files aren't being saved to the external drive.
>
> Correcting this would be welcome and thanks in advance.
>

cd Downloads

tar cvf /path/out/friday.tar aspen birch cedar # Put three folders in a custom "tape archive"
# Preserves date, owner, perms

cd /home/wayne

tar cvf /path/out/friday-downloads.tar Downloads # much easier to type, if stuff is in a "tree"
# Also easier to manage at Extraction time too.
# If everything you want is in a single folder,
# the archive might be a bit more complete.

c for Create
v is verbose (Progress...)
f for filename-of-output

It's bad manners, to toss a hundred loose files into a tar command,
then give it to someone. As when they Extract, the crap sprays all
over the place. It's kinda like a game of "52 pickup" if you do that.
Making a good tar, everything should be in a single folder so only
one "splot" appears in the destination during Extraction. That makes
it easier for a recipient to unpack and handle. While some recipients
use Archive Manager to unpack, others will use command line, and then
the etiquette matters.

Can be opened in Archive Manager. That's one of the points of this process.

The single output file can be compressed later if you wish.
It's better to make the tar first, verify in the verbose output
that everything went well, then compress it.

Does not save space, so 20GB of files is a 20GB tarfile.
There is a slight overhead, proportional to number of files.

And it's called a tape archive, because these used to be
sent to a real tape drive.

Paul

On 2022-09-09, David Catterall <djcatt@eircom.net> wrote:
> On 09/09/2022 04:08, stepore wrote:
>
>> Stop doing that. Use rsync or something similar that's actually made for
>> this type of work.
>
> I stopped doing that when I found that it messed up modification dates
> and permissions. At the very least you need to use cp or rsync with the
> -a option.
>
> D.

Yes rsync has switches, so you can turn things on and off so you get what you
want. Find the -a switch and turn it on, you might like it.

(Also other programmes also have switches for much the same reason.)

Grsync is a front end to rsync. (the -a switch is on the front panel)

There are many backup programmes. Some of them use rsync to so the heavy
lifting.

I have found that borg backup with Vorta as the front end to be worthwhile.