[ubuntu-uk] Using Rsync to make incremental backups

[Rob Beard]

Hi folks,

I'm hoping someone could help me with something I'm trying to achieve 
with regards to backing up a friend's server to an external hard drive.

Basically what he wants is to be able to run a nightly backup from his 
server to a USB FAT32 formatted external hard drive.

However, what he wants is only any files that have changed to be copied 
over, and these files to be copied over into a new directory on the drive.

I've been looking into rsync to do this.  I've managed to do an initial 
copy of his files from his server to the drive and then I've tried to 
add some files to the server and then run rsync using the --backup-dir 
switch which I've been pointing to the existing data on the USB drive.

I can't seem to get it to copy only the differences though.

I was wondering if anyone knew how to achieve this, or is it not 
possible with a FAT32 formatted drive (which doesn't support hard links 
as far as I know)?

To be honest I think it would be much easier to just copy the full 
directory every night.

Rob