Backing up to an external FAT32 disk

[Liam Proven]

On 13/07/07, Rashkae <ubuntu at tigershaunt.com> wrote:
> Liam Proven wrote:
> > On 12/07/07, Rashkae <ubuntu at tigershaunt.com> wrote:
> >> Nils Kassube wrote:
> >>> Liam Proven wrote:
> >>>> I am trying to backup a 98% full RAID array (some 100GB of stuff) onto
> >>>> a 400GB FAT32 USB2 external hard drive. I don't have space on the RAID
> >>>> itself to create the archive, nor on my 3G root FS.
> >>>>
> >>>> I tried (in my /media directory, the mountpoint for both the RAID and
> >>>> the USB drive):
> >>>>
> >>>> tar -cvf usbdrive/raid.tar raid/
> >>>>
> >>>> This worked but I forgot one detail. FAT32 has a max file size of
> >>>> about 4G. So when the archive got to 4G, it barfed.
> >>> Try this:
> >>>
> >>> tar c raid | split -d --suffix-length=3 --bytes=1000m - usbdrive/raid_
> >>>
> >>> That will give you files of 1000MB size with filenames usbdrive/raid_<nnn>
> >>> with <nnn> being numbers counting from 001.
> >>>
> >>> You can test the archive with:
> >>>
> >>> cat usbdrive/raid_* | tar tv
> >>>
> >>> And you can restore a file with:
> >>>
> >>> cat usbdrive/raid_* | tar x <filename>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Nils
> >>>
> >> This is the right approach, but I would use a command more like:
> >>
> >> tar -cz raid | split -b 2000m - /media/usbdrive/raid.tar.gz.
> >>
> >> And as already mentioned, to restore:
> >>
> >> cat /media/usbdrive/raid.tar.gz.* | tar -xz   (run this in the location
> >> where you want the files restored.)
> >
> > Thanks for that!
> >
> > I would ask the same question that I asked Nils, though...?
> >
>
> A fine question.  And indeed, if tar can, on it's own create multiple
> files, then I've learned something new... I always considered those
> switches as nothing more than a means of changing your media for those
> backup methods where tar writes *directly* to the backup device.

As far as I can see from reading many and various docs, man pages,
info pages and howtos, yes, it can, but the problem is /naming/ them.
What it seems unable to do (that even dump can) is name the segments
consecutively and when given a source with all the segments sitting
there automatically read them all in sequence.

So near and yet so far...

-- 
Liam Proven • Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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