Easy to use DVD backup utility
Hi there, I need to backup data from my /home to DVD. I have around 6 GB of (uncompressed) data. Can somebody recommend an easy to use backup utility? Should I be aware of a maximum size of tar.gz-files? - Is there e.g. a 2 GB limit? I am running SuSE 9.1. Janus -- Roskilde University, Denmark. Department of Technology and Social Science. International Development Studies. ESST - Society, Science and Technology in Europe.
On Thursday 20 October 2005 09:08 am, Janus Sandsgaard wrote:
Hi there,
I need to backup data from my /home to DVD. I have around 6 GB of (uncompressed) data. Can somebody recommend an easy to use backup utility?
Should I be aware of a maximum size of tar.gz-files? - Is there e.g. a 2 GB limit?
I am running SuSE 9.1.
Look at DAR and KDAR (a front end to dar) It will split files based on your size settings.
On Thursday 20 October 2005 15:34, Bruce Marshall wrote:
Look at DAR and KDAR (a front end to dar) It will split files based on your size settings.
Thanks, but Kdar crashes everytime I right-click in the application. Makes me nervous about using it. :-/ Janus -- Roskilde University, Denmark. Department of Technology and Social Science. International Development Studies. ESST - Society, Science and Technology in Europe.
On Thursday 20 October 2005 09:44 am, Janus Sandsgaard wrote:
Thanks, but Kdar crashes everytime I right-click in the application. Makes me nervous about using it. :-/
Look at dar itself then. kdar is just a front-end. dar isn't very hard to set up.
On Thu, 2005-10-20 at 15:44 +0200, Janus Sandsgaard wrote:
On Thursday 20 October 2005 15:34, Bruce Marshall wrote:
Look at DAR and KDAR (a front end to dar) It will split files based on your size settings.
Thanks, but Kdar crashes everytime I right-click in the application. Makes me nervous about using it. :-/
Janus
Why not use K3b to backup. It uses drag-n-drop. There is also mondo/mindi that will let you backup to specified media. Last I used it it did not support DVD but I used the CD option and gave it a slice size for a DVD (4.3G) anyway and it worked. Burned the resulting ISO to DVD and was on my way. If you have double-layer DVD's you could back up to one. mondoarchive is used to backup and mondorestore is used to restore files. This also provides disaster recovery if you want to backup everything, it generates a boot restore iso you can burn to CD. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998
On 10/20/05, Ken Schneider
On Thu, 2005-10-20 at 15:44 +0200, Janus Sandsgaard wrote:
On Thursday 20 October 2005 15:34, Bruce Marshall wrote:
Look at DAR and KDAR (a front end to dar) It will split files based on your size settings.
Thanks, but Kdar crashes everytime I right-click in the application. Makes me nervous about using it. :-/
Janus
Why not use K3b to backup. It uses drag-n-drop.
There is also mondo/mindi that will let you backup to specified media. Last I used it it did not support DVD but I used the CD option and gave it a slice size for a DVD (4.3G) anyway and it worked. Burned the resulting ISO to DVD and was on my way. If you have double-layer DVD's you could back up to one. mondoarchive is used to backup and mondorestore is used to restore files. This also provides disaster recovery if you want to backup everything, it generates a boot restore iso you can burn to CD.
-- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998
mondo does dvd's now, just use r as a the device option and set the size (option s) to 4700m or 4.7g and it'll burn to dvd (if you have a dl burner, then sizes can be increased). Or, you can have it create isos that you can burn using another utility, say k3b. And the baremetal recovery is nice, just boot the disc and nuke it or do a custom restore. Oh, and the backups can stored on nfs if you have a network available. I'm using it to back up genetics databases and research data on a RHAS box. John
Janus Sandsgaard wrote:
Hi there,
I need to backup data from my /home to DVD. I have around 6 GB of (uncompressed) data. Can somebody recommend an easy to use backup utility?
Should I be aware of a maximum size of tar.gz-files? - Is there e.g. a 2 GB limit?
I don't know of a maximum file size, but tar can span multiple volumes.
On 10/20/05, James Knott
Janus Sandsgaard wrote:
Hi there,
I need to backup data from my /home to DVD. I have around 6 GB of (uncompressed) data. Can somebody recommend an easy to use backup utility?
Should I be aware of a maximum size of tar.gz-files? - Is there e.g. a 2 GB limit?
I don't know of a maximum file size, but tar can span multiple volumes.
Tar does not have a max. filesize. It simply does sequential reads/writes. The filesytem your writing to may, but most Linux filesystems can go past 2 GB. FAT32 has a 2 GB limit, so definately don't use a FAT32 volume as a staging area. Are you having problems? Or just worried? Greg -- Greg Freemyer The Norcross Group Forensics for the 21st Century
On Thursday 20 October 2005 16:00, Greg Freemyer wrote:
Tar does not have a max. filesize. It simply does sequential reads/writes. The filesytem your writing to may, but most Linux filesystems can go past 2 GB. FAT32 has a 2 GB limit, so definately don't use a FAT32 volume as a staging area.
I am running a system on ext3.
Are you having problems? Or just worried?
No problems so far. Just needed to be sure. Janus -- Roskilde University, Denmark. Department of Technology and Social Science. International Development Studies. ESST - Society, Science and Technology in Europe.
On Thursday 20 October 2005 10:00, Greg Freemyer wrote:
... FAT32 has a 2 GB limit, so definately don't use a FAT32 volume as a staging area.
Please qualify this statement, Greg. I don't think its entirely accurate. I hate to "nit-pick" but this is the kind of misinformation that one person reads, accepts as gospel, passes it along to family and friends who, in turn, pass it along to their family and friends until it circles the globe a couple of times and ends up back here as a question. And the first one to pick it up and pass it along can have his life ruined, too: - he's made to look foolish in front of his prospective father-in-law, an ill-tempered sysadmin, who then increasingly starts finding fault with him - his girlfriend dumps him from the familial pressure and embarrassment - his hoped-for computer shop never materializes - the disappointment and broken heart lead him to drugs, alcohol, fast cars and women - he eventually dies penniless and homeless, his sole remaining possession being a worn-out CD containing partially corrupted jpegs of his ex-girlfriend from the better times. Sad, isn't it? - Carl ;-)
On Thursday 20 October 2005 11:16, Carl Hartung wrote:
On Thursday 20 October 2005 10:00, Greg Freemyer wrote:
... FAT32 has a 2 GB limit, so definately don't use a FAT32 volume as a staging area.
More FUD??? Not withstanding the limitations imposed by Microsoft on their own file system utilities -- FAT32 has a ~4GiB file size limit, not 2GB.
Please qualify this statement, Greg. I don't think its entirely accurate. I hate to "nit-pick" but this is the kind of misinformation that one person reads, accepts as gospel, passes it along to family and friends who, in turn, pass it along to their family and friends until it circles the globe a couple of times and ends up back here as a question. And the first one to pick it up and pass it along can have his life ruined, too:
Watch the word wrap... http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/ en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/ en-us/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;184006 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q314463 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table -- Christopher Shanahan
On 10/20/05, Carl Hartung
On Thursday 20 October 2005 10:00, Greg Freemyer wrote:
... FAT32 has a 2 GB limit, so definately don't use a FAT32 volume as a staging area.
Please qualify this statement, Greg. I don't think its entirely accurate. I hate to "nit-pick" but this is the kind of misinformation that one person reads, accepts as gospel, passes it along to family and friends who, in turn, pass it along to their family and friends until it circles the globe a couple of times and ends up back here as a question. And the first one to pick it up and pass it along can have his life ruined, too:
Carl, I don't know what you mean? As far as I know the FAT 32 filesystem has a 2 GB max file size. Therefore it would be a very bad place to stage tar files larger than 2 GB. If you know otherwise I would be very interested. I really _need_ a reliable and readily available solution for moving large files from Linux to Windows. Right now I always use split to break the files into 2 GB or smaller pieces and write them to FAT32. Then I have the choice of using specialized software that can work with the split images (I'm talking about Computer Forensic software and much of it does support split files.) Or I can re-assemble the pieces via Windows by writing to a NTFS partition. FYI: I am not saying anything about FAT32's max filesystem size. I don't know what it is, but with Linux I have formatted single partitions up to 400GB. The standard Windows OS tools refuse to create that large of a FAT32 partition. Third party tools like partition magic will also format large partitions as FAT32. Greg -- Greg Freemyer The Norcross Group Forensics for the 21st Century
Retract the below.
I just read Christopher Shanahan's mail (thanks for that) that gives
further resources that talk about the 2 GB vs. 4 GB max filesize
issue.
I will need to experiment with that because I would really like it if
I could size up to 4 GB splits of my files.
Greg
On 10/22/05, Greg Freemyer
On 10/20/05, Carl Hartung
wrote: On Thursday 20 October 2005 10:00, Greg Freemyer wrote:
... FAT32 has a 2 GB limit, so definately don't use a FAT32 volume as a staging area.
Please qualify this statement, Greg. I don't think its entirely accurate. I hate to "nit-pick" but this is the kind of misinformation that one person reads, accepts as gospel, passes it along to family and friends who, in turn, pass it along to their family and friends until it circles the globe a couple of times and ends up back here as a question. And the first one to pick it up and pass it along can have his life ruined, too:
Carl,
I don't know what you mean?
As far as I know the FAT 32 filesystem has a 2 GB max file size. Therefore it would be a very bad place to stage tar files larger than 2 GB.
If you know otherwise I would be very interested. I really _need_ a reliable and readily available solution for moving large files from Linux to Windows. Right now I always use split to break the files into 2 GB or smaller pieces and write them to FAT32. Then I have the choice of using specialized software that can work with the split images (I'm talking about Computer Forensic software and much of it does support split files.)
Or I can re-assemble the pieces via Windows by writing to a NTFS partition.
FYI: I am not saying anything about FAT32's max filesystem size. I don't know what it is, but with Linux I have formatted single partitions up to 400GB. The standard Windows OS tools refuse to create that large of a FAT32 partition. Third party tools like partition magic will also format large partitions as FAT32.
Greg -- Greg Freemyer The Norcross Group Forensics for the 21st Century
-- Greg Freemyer The Norcross Group Forensics for the 21st Century
On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 09:41:29 -0400, you wrote:
Retract the below.
I just read Christopher Shanahan's mail (thanks for that) that gives further resources that talk about the 2 GB vs. 4 GB max filesize issue.
I will need to experiment with that because I would really like it if I could size up to 4 GB splits of my files.
Greg
On 10/22/05, Greg Freemyer
wrote: On 10/20/05, Carl Hartung
wrote: On Thursday 20 October 2005 10:00, Greg Freemyer wrote:
... FAT32 has a 2 GB limit, so definately don't use a FAT32 volume as a staging area.
Please qualify this statement, Greg. I don't think its entirely accurate. I hate to "nit-pick" but this is the kind of misinformation that one person reads, accepts as gospel, passes it along to family and friends who, in turn, pass it along to their family and friends until it circles the globe a couple of times and ends up back here as a question. And the first one to pick it up and pass it along can have his life ruined, too:
Carl,
I don't know what you mean?
As far as I know the FAT 32 filesystem has a 2 GB max file size. Therefore it would be a very bad place to stage tar files larger than 2 GB.
If you know otherwise I would be very interested. I really _need_ a reliable and readily available solution for moving large files from Linux to Windows. Right now I always use split to break the files into 2 GB or smaller pieces and write them to FAT32. Then I have the choice of using specialized software that can work with the split images (I'm talking about Computer Forensic software and much of it does support split files.)
Or I can re-assemble the pieces via Windows by writing to a NTFS partition.
FYI: I am not saying anything about FAT32's max filesystem size. I don't know what it is, but with Linux I have formatted single partitions up to 400GB. The standard Windows OS tools refuse to create that large of a FAT32 partition. Third party tools like partition magic will also format large partitions as FAT32.
Greg --
1) I don't know exactly what the FAT32 max file size is, but it's not 2 or 4 Gb, as I have files larger than 4Gb on a FAT32 volume. 2) If you mentioned what version of SuSE you're using I missed it, but there are a few ways to write directly to an NTFS volume from linux - For SuSE 10 (which has fuse capability without kernel hacking), the ntfsprogs (not included w/ SuSE - google for ntfsprogs-fuse) work for me so far. For most previous versions of SuSE I used captive-ntfs, which works (when it works at all) very well - but the author has orphaned it. If it works with your kernel, you're good to go, but if it doesn't, it won't. I also tried the commercial product "write anywhere" - it's complete crap. Mike- -- Mornings: Evolution in action. Only the grumpy will survive. -- Please note - Due to the intense volume of spam, we have installed site-wide spam filters at catherders.com. If email from you bounces, try non-HTML, non-encoded, non-attachments.
On 10/22/05, Michael W Cocke
1) I don't know exactly what the FAT32 max file size is, but it's not 2 or 4 Gb, as I have files larger than 4Gb on a FAT32 volume.
Interesting, the docs referenced all said 4 GiB.
2) If you mentioned what version of SuSE you're using I missed it, but there are a few ways to write directly to an NTFS volume from linux - For SuSE 10 (which has fuse capability without kernel hacking), the ntfsprogs (not included w/ SuSE - google for ntfsprogs-fuse) work for me so far. For most previous versions of SuSE I used captive-ntfs, which works (when it works at all) very well - but the author has orphaned it. If it works with your kernel, you're good to go, but if it doesn't, it won't.
I also tried the commercial product "write anywhere" - it's complete crap.
Thanks for the info. I knew SUSE 10 had FUSE. It is on my list of things to test with NTFS writes. What I do is normally straight forward. ie. Just create a bunch of big files and save their MD5SUM to ensure integrity. I actually use a variety of Linux systems in my job, so my generic solution will continue to be split files on FAT32, but I have 3 or 4 machines that I fully control the OS, so those will be whatever they need to be. ie. This is their primary job. Greg -- Greg Freemyer The Norcross Group Forensics for the 21st Century
On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 10:20:56 -0400, you wrote:
On 10/22/05, Michael W Cocke
wrote: 1) I don't know exactly what the FAT32 max file size is, but it's not 2 or 4 Gb, as I have files larger than 4Gb on a FAT32 volume.
Interesting, the docs referenced all said 4 GiB.
Correction - stock FAT32 has that limit. I forgot that I fooled around with things with the editor from partition magic and a patch or two... Mike- -- Mornings: Evolution in action. Only the grumpy will survive. -- Please note - Due to the intense volume of spam, we have installed site-wide spam filters at catherders.com. If email from you bounces, try non-HTML, non-encoded, non-attachments.
On Saturday 22 October 2005 09:56, Michael W Cocke wrote:
On 10/22/05, Greg Freemyer
wrote: Carl, ... If you know otherwise I would be very interested.
1) I don't know exactly what the FAT32 max file size is, but it's not 2 or 4 Gb, as I have files larger than 4Gb on a FAT32 volume.
Hi Mike & Greg, I've gotta run, but thought I'd toss this into the equation for discussion... I create and 'stage' backups and multimedia files in excess of 2GB and 4GB regularly on my FAT32 partitions from the Linux side. XP handles them transparently, but I don't know about Win98/98SE or earlier. That, I think, is a good question for Google, since there are plenty of reliable online sources to verify what the facts are. I personally would never recommend writing to NTFS from Linux, but YMMV. regards, - Carl
On Thursday 20 October 2005 16:00, Greg Freemyer wrote:
Tar does not have a max. filesize. It simply does sequential reads/writes.
I feel comfortable about using tar. A primitive way to do my backup would be to make 2 tar-files: photos + documents 4,4 GB mail +.kde, 3,5 GB and burn them on each their DVD. Can I simply do that? If tar is OK with files around 4,5 GB is there anything special I have to worry about when burning the DVD (settings, formats etc)? Thanks! Janus -- Roskilde University, Denmark. Department of Technology and Social Science. International Development Studies. ESST - Society, Science and Technology in Europe.
On Thursday 20 October 2005 11:22 am, Janus Sandsgaard wrote:
I feel comfortable about using tar. A primitive way to do my backup would be to make 2 tar-files:
photos + documents 4,4 GB mail +.kde, 3,5 GB
and burn them on each their DVD.
Can I simply do that? If tar is OK with files around 4,5 GB is there anything special I have to worry about when burning the DVD (settings, formats etc)?
Just a few more comment about dar: 1) It allows you to set the compression factor 2) It allows you to *not* compress specified filetypes #Exclude some files from compression -Z *.jpg -Z *.gz -Z *.bz2 -Z *.bin -Z *.so -Z *.png -Z *.gif -Z *bin/* -Z *sbin/* -Z *.rpm What you mention above is certainly do-able. dar might be something to look at long term.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Thursday 2005-10-20 at 15:08 +0200, Janus Sandsgaard wrote:
I need to backup data from my /home to DVD. I have around 6 GB of (uncompressed) data. Can somebody recommend an easy to use backup utility?
If you have lots of free space (twice the backup size) you can create a compressed dvd copy of everything (using mkzftree) - but it is not "easy", it is a manual process. On the other hand, recovery is direct, just mount it and read any file on the fly with any utility (the kernel does transparent decompression). - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDV6QXtTMYHG2NR9URAq4CAKCOOiS9PA13mvBEZ7ZZ0wHQNEfHSwCcCZwb Ut4R8ZhvoClvz8UXEwKF+9U= =B9yp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (10)
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Bruce Marshall
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Carl Hartung
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Carlos E. R.
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Christopher Shanahan
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Greg Freemyer
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James Knott
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Janus Sandsgaard
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John Scott
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Ken Schneider
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Michael W Cocke