Yes, Joeseph is right. It's a file size limit on FAT32. I ran into this once myself some years back. But, I would certainly not recommend ext2. I see no reason to give up the journal. ext3 is very reliable and would give you more flexibility and security as well. Joseph C. Lininger writes: > Hi, > First, allow me to clear up a little bit of confusion regarding limits of > fat32. When you look at a filesystem, there are two major limits you will > run into. The first is an over all limit, meaning how large the entire > filesystem can be. The second limit is a bit more suttle. It is a limit on > the size of an individual file. The fat32 filesystem can support > filesystems up to 2 terabytes in total size. However, each individual file > in a fat32 filesystem may not be larger than 4gigabytes. Now, I will > address Steve's original question. > > The tar program is designed for tapes, and all the -f option does is to > tell it to write the same contents to a file that it would write to the > tape. This means that when it hits the size limit you have specified with > -L it will simply start over with the next portion in the file. What you > have to do to get around this if you want to do it this way is to have a > script that runs in between each portion (see the -F option) which will > rename the file tar uses for its work to something else so that when tar > recreates it for the next part you don't lose the previous one. Tar does > not automatically provide this functionality. I can provide more details on > how such a script would work if desired. > > You do have one other option. You could format the drive using ext2 or > ext3, and then use ext2fsd under Windows to read and write the filesystem. > The driver is not perfect, but it does work. This would overcome your size > limitation. This would also allow you to use the -j option to tar since you > would be using a single file, meaning the file would be much smaller since > you would be using compression. > -- > Joseph C. Lininger > jbahm at pcdesk.net > Verification: 5eab38a77ac40416e075be8f50607ff7 > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Steve Holmes" <steve at holmesgrown.com> > To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> > Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 1:24 AM > Subject: Tar Backups and Size Limits > > > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >Hash: SHA1 > > > >Hey, I'm trying to backup my linux system (home directories to a 200 > >GB external drive using tar. It seems that there is an upper size > >limit either due to the fat32 file system on this external drive or > >tar. I can't emagine tar having imposed any limits. So I tried to > >use -M multi-volume option and a -L limit of 4GB. It got through the > >first file seemingly ok and it put up the prompt to start the next > >file. Well, I figured tar would just go ahead and create the next > >file with a different suffix or something. Well, it appears that it > >did not. When I looked in another console I saw that the size of the > >second archive started over as I would expect but it is actually the > >original file. In other words, I think the back procedure is > >overlaying the first file. The tar command I used is: > >tar -cvf archive.tar -M -L 4000000 FILES... > > > >I figured later I would do incremental backups against this tar file. > >Am I missing something? If I reformatted my external drive as ext3 or > >something, I could probably have done all this without size limits but > >I also intend to use this same drive to backup my winblows boxes as > >well. This is a 200 GB drive with a pre configured VFAT single > >partition. > > > >Any ideas out there? Thanks. > > > >- -- > >HolmesGrown Solutions > >The best solutions for the best price! > >http://ld.net/?holmesgrown > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > >Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) > > > >iD8DBQFBjdulWSjv55S0LfERAjvcAJ4nP7C/cVtMo6iLhoHqCg94skviVgCeMdQF > >2kuZ0rrTJ+K7r4TbTsWkAh8= > >=nOgl > >-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Speakup mailing list > >Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup -- Janina Sajka, Chair Accessibility Workgroup Free Standards Group (FSG) janina at freestandards.org Phone: +1 202.494.7040
