[SWLUG] Rsync Problems

[Jon Reynolds]

Hello all,

I have set up an old laptop to act as a small home server at home, the
idea being that it is quiet and low powered to be left on basically
24/7.

Storage was an issue as I wanted it to act as a file server for music
and somewhere to store my photos, videos etc. So in the end I have 2
external aluminium USB enclosures for 3.5" HDDs.

The problem with this is that they are 'on' constantly as there doesn't
seem to be any way of powering them down after a period of inactivity.
Therefore they are HOT all the time and I am concerned this may be
killing them.

I have set up a basic script to backup my web server to this home server
once a week using rsync. I get an email from cron to show me the results
of the backup and I seem to be getting increasing amounts of errors.

Here is a selection of some of the errors from the rsync output:

rsync:
readlink_stat("/home/jonr/media/.jcrdev/home-backup/Maildir/.SWLUG/cur/1277284768.5371_1.jcrdevelopments.com:2,")
failed: Input/output error (5)

rsync: recv_generator: failed to stat
"/home/jonr/media/.jcrdev/home-backup/Maildir/.SWLUG/cur/1277214444.13386_1.jcrdevelopments.com:2,":
Input/output error (5)

rsync: delete_file:
unlink(Maildir/.admin/cur/1277262657.17608_1.jcrdevelopments.com:2,S)
failed: Operation not permitted (1)
could not make way for new regular file:
Maildir/.admin/cur/1277262657.17608_1.jcrdevelopments.com:2,S

IO error encountered -- skipping file deletion

rsync: recv_generator: mkdir
"/home/jonr/media/.jcrdev/varwww-backup/gallery2/themes/matrix/locale/ko/LC_MESSAGES"
failed: Input/output error (5)
*** Skipping any contents from this failed directory ***

rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at
main.c(977) [sender=2.6.9]

Most of then seem to be I/O errors, which makes me concerned to the
health of the HDDs. But maybe its an rsync thing that I am not familiar
with.

Can anyone shed a bit more light on these errors?

I get similar errors when mirroring one backup HDD to the other using
rsync too.

Thanks in advance

Jon Reynolds
(j0nr)