Why Is Backing Up A Hdd So Difficult?

[rob86 2]

I'm trying to backup an entire HDD (160gb) to another external HDD (1TB) and in theory it should be simple, I certainly know how to copy files and folders, but it never seems to work. This drive is 100% windows stuff (No Ubuntu on there)My first attempt was installing an FTP server on Ubuntu, adding the 160GB drive's C: to it, and then trying to download the entire thing on Computer#2 to a drive. It appeared to be working fine, until it finished and the result was a backup of 11GB..obviously short of the ~150gb of files I have to backup.So then I tried hooking the external HDD up to the Computer#1 directly, and just dragging and dropping the drive from /media/ in Nautilus. Once again, it didn't do so well. I forget how much I got but it was far off.Then I tried what I thought was old faithful -- cp in the Ubuntu CLI. This did the best of all, I think maybe 50gb got transferred, but still..far from complete. Finally, I brought out what I thought was heavy artillery, a demo for some backup software. This worked the worst of all! It seemed to take forever to do anything and kept stalling.I don't get (m)any errors explaining why it's not working, most of my files just get ignored.What's the deal with this? I have no problems copying files, it's normally a task even a newbie could do. Smaller bunches of files can be backup-ed easily, but when I do the whole drive it doesn't work. I was using Ubuntu because I was trying to avoid the whole "Windows files in use" stuff that might cause some problems.

[Baniboy 3]

I don't know about the FTP servers and that stuff. BUT, attach the drive(internal one, I suppose) to your computer running ubuntu, right-click on the mounted drive(on your desktop as an icon) and select "compress". Choose the compressed file's path to be your 1TB HDD and let it roll. That is how I backup stuff Except my home folder, that's a little tricky -.- You might get a permission denied message, so make sure you're running file-roller(compression software) as root in terminal.Good luck

[mra550 0]

well maybe it is so big thats why it is so difficult and slow, thats the reason I know , I also don't know about FTP servers but I know how to use an FTP it is where I upload my files in a website right? or is there any other use of that thing? its a file transfer protocol? and?

[BuffaloHelp 24]

There are different methods of backing up. You are doing file by file, exact copy instead of compressing.Some other methods includes linear backing up, backingup only the files modified, complete backup etc.When you simply copy file by file you will run into problems like premature termination of full copy due to bottlenecking. This is always the case if your computer is utilizing some of files.The second is the backing up target. Most USB external HDD are not certified as backup because they tend to "go to sleep" after a while. You'll need to check this.The third might be the improper usage of the copy command. And sometimes I recommend instead of using "copy" use "xcopy" for robust copying commands.The last check is instead of copying on the fly (or backing up on the fly), compress the source to target.

[lapwlover 0]

maybe it is, may be it is not. that depends on what tool you choose.

i dont recommend windows backup utility, not comprehensive enough.drive backup, true image and todo backup are all good backup tools.
if u are a home user, there are many free utilities out there.
I use todo backup free to backup my system partition, it more versatility than windows built-in tool. Schedule backup set, incremental backup, differential backup, backup to network, clone system disk.