From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 10 01:17:08 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 293EB16A405 for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 01:17:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from mail.potentialtech.com (internet.potentialtech.com [66.167.251.6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F1C5A13C459 for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 01:17:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from working (c-71-60-105-193.hsd1.pa.comcast.net [71.60.105.193]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.potentialtech.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2BFE3EBC78; Wed, 9 May 2007 21:17:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 21:17:06 -0400 From: Bill Moran To: L Goodwin Message-Id: <20070509211706.9c9622a8.wmoran@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <965182.90754.qm@web58109.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <965182.90754.qm@web58109.mail.re3.yahoo.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 2.2.10 (GTK+ 2.10.9; i386-portbld-freebsd6.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Backing up Samba share to USB jump drive? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 01:17:08 -0000 L Goodwin wrote: > > Here's another round of dumb questions for ya: > > Can USB jump drives be used to back-up a Samba share? > If so, what do I need to do to prepare the USB drive > to accept files? > Since I don't really need to compress or encrypt, I > was thinking about simply copying the entire directory > tree using the cp command, instead of using dump, tar, > cpio. > Will this work, and is it a "good idea"? Sure. > The filesystem to be backed up is a single common UFS > shared via Samba. All PC users have access to the same > set of files (no user-specific directories). The files > to be backed up are Word, Excel, PDF, etc. Every jump drive I've seen comes pre-formatted as FAT-32. The only problem with this is you'll lose POSIX file permissions when you copy the files. If you're not using the file permissions, then it isn't a problem. > I don't want to buy the drives until I know if it will > work and how to do it. Do I need to UFS format the > drives? I assume the drive will have to be mounted > like any other drive... It's your choice. You can leave the drive formatted FAT-32 for compat with other OSen, or you can newfs it to a ufs filesystem to maintain unix-style file permissions. In my experience, jump drives behave just like any other drive. -- Bill Moran http://www.potentialtech.com