I would try running 'updatedb' to make sure all is up to date before trying to delete. It could be related to the time it takes to close the and trying to delete it. Also, and I haven't checked if it is possible at all, maybe trying to combine the backups with logrotate and rsync? I think logrotate's facility to delete old logs can be useful in your scenario... Good luck, and let us know! Amichai Rotman. <div class="gmail_quote">On Feb 24, 2015 12:13 PM, "Karl Auer" <<a href="mailto:kauer@biplane.com.au">kauer@biplane.com.au</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">On Tue, 2015-02-24 at 09:50 +0000, Colin Law wrote: > On 23 February 2015 at 23:17, Karl Auer <<a href="mailto:kauer@biplane.com.au">kauer@biplane.com.au</a>> wrote: > > Anyway, when I tried removing a backup using rm -fr dirname it deleted > > heaps of files out of the directory and its many subdirectories, but > > also issued lots of messages about being unable to delete directories > > because they were not empty. > > Anything in syslog? USB access problems? Nope and nope. I'm wondering now if it is as Chris Green implies, some kind of resource problem when recursing deep into the directory tree. It's easily ten to twenty levels deep in places. However, I'd have thought that would have caused an earlier error than the high-level "no can do because directory not empty". And remember the effect is identical in both rm and rsync. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (<a href="mailto:kauer@biplane.com.au">kauer@biplane.com.au</a>) <a href="http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer" target="_blank">http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/kauer389" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/kauer389</a> GPG fingerprint: 3C41 82BE A9E7 99A1 B931 5AE7 7638 0147 2C3C 2AC4 Old fingerprint: EC67 61E2 C2F6 EB55 884B E129 072B 0AF0 72AA 9882 -- ubuntu-users mailing list <a href="mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users</a> </blockquote></div>