[CentOS] Which file system to use for a USB backup

[Dale Dellutri]

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 5:51 PM, Todd Cary <todd at aristesoftware.com> wrote:
> Les -
>
> A lot of the data needs to be moved in time to servers in other
> organizations (e.g. Rotary) or the data may be used as a
> repository for someone with just a notebook computer who would
> plug the HD into the computer.  This is not my main data backup;
> I use rsync for that.
> http://www.toddcary.com/rotary/ is one example of data that needs
> to be shared.
>
> Can rsync take ext4 data and copy it to a fat32 drive?

Yes, but you have to give up permissions and the modify time on a FAT32 is only
accurate to 2 seconds.  To rsync from an ext3/4 directory to a
plugged-in USB drive
use something like:

  rsync -av --no-p --modify-window=1 <srcdir>/ /media/<volname>/<targetdir>/

and you might need --delete.

More info at man rsync.

Another possibility: always use tar, and put something like a Windows version of
7zip executable on the USB drive as well as the data.  That way, Windows users
can get the files out the tar archive.

-- 
Dale Dellutri