Re: Copying and taring large amounts of data

[Elizabeth Barham <soggytrousers@yahoo.com>]

tar cf - /path-to-be-archived | gzip -c > /new/place/to store-file.tar.gz

Note that this will take a while, too. Hopefully the system won't
stop, though. You might consider running this command with at, say "at
1am" or so, and just let it run for a few hours (days?).  At will run
the command with a "nice" priority.

hth, Elizabeth

Scott Henson <shenson2@wvu.edu> writes:

> I need to move large amounts of data from one disk to another and then
> tar it up for back up purposes.  I have tried cp and mv, but both take
> very large amounts of time with many ide resets and faults.  The amount
> of data I am trying to copy is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15
> gigs.  It is going from a fat32 fs to an ext2 fs.  I also notice that
> when I use cp,  my system grinds to a halt and the cp comand doesnt do
> much.  From what I am guessing is happening is that it fills up its
> buffers in main memory, then doesnt flush it to the disk.  If I stop the
> command and issue a flush then the system starts working again.  But if
> I dont issue a flush the system remains in that stalled state for like a
> minute.  I am not completely sure how to best copy this large amount of
> data over, but I would like any ideas.
> 
> I have 384mb of ram and am copying from an ATA 66 drive to a ATA 100
> drive with a celeron 800mgh.