On which format can I copy a 4+ gig file on a usb drive?

okos · 06-25-2008, 10:37 PM

Hi, I have a 4 gig file to backup.
I bought a 1TB usb hd to back up files. It is currently formatted fat 32.
I tried twice to copy the file, once though Konqueror and once through Konsole and filed both times.

I don't think the fat32 format will take files that large.

What format should I use?

lazlow · 06-25-2008, 11:22 PM

Ext3 is pretty much the "standard" file system for linux. If I remember correctly Fat32 has a max file size of 2gb.

onebuck · 06-25-2008, 11:51 PM

Hi,

That's a big usb drive. Partition part of the drive as 'ext3' to use as backup. If you want 'raw' backup then create another partition with sufficient space to allow the 'raw' backup to be made.

I would create a logical partition so more available partitions can be made. Just plan out as to how you wish the partitions to be allocated space for growth.

As stated I like the 'ext3' filesystem because it is journaled and will be supported through the life of Linux.

jschiwal · 06-25-2008, 11:53 PM

If you already have files on your 1TB external drive, you could use the "split" program to break up the file into slices. To restore, simply cat the segments to the destination: cat /media/disk/filename* >~/videos/filename. If you have reasonably sized slices you can use par2 to create parity files. If one of the slices becomes damaged, you can recover it.

okos · 06-26-2008, 12:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazlow

Ext3 is pretty much the "standard" file system for linux. If I remember correctly Fat32 has a max file size of 2gb.

Having googled the issue other posts stated 4 gigs max.

Mr. C. · 06-26-2008, 01:09 AM

See http://www.novell.com/documentation/...ml/apas04.html .

Linux, and all modern Unix varieties support large file sizes well in excess of 4gig.

If the file is compressible, or you want to archive more than one file, use tar:

tar -cvzf /my/backup/drive/file.tgz /path/to/my/large/file ...

If you don't want compression:

tar -cvf /my/backup/drive/file.tar /path/to/my/large/file ...

okos · 06-26-2008, 11:23 PM

Hi I formatted 200 G for ext3 and successfully copied the 4.4 gig file to my usb drive.
Much of the drive I have left unformatted at this time.
Thanks for the help.