[SWLUG] Backing up took 3 days

[Pete Phillips]

>>>>> "James" == James  <Diagmato at black0ps.com> writes:

    James> I was hoping someone would be able to shed some light onto
    James> this problem - a simple backup of two directories (rather
    James> large directories) usually takes at most 5 hours. But this
    James> week, it took 3 days.

    James> Every few weeks, i turn on the external drive, and run:

    James> cp -fvr /home/james/.* /media/backups/home cp -fvr
    James> /mnt/win_c2/.* /media/backups/docs

    James> On fedora core, and way back on mandriva 10.2, this only took
    James> a few hours - possibly 5 at most. On suse, its taken 3 days,
    James> and is still going.

    James> The drive is USB2.0 - a possibility is that its only running
    James> at usb1's speed? If so how can i check this?

    James> Anything else it could be? There isnt really that much more
    James> files to be backed up since fedora core 4, so its not as if
    James> theres thousands of large files (since the last backup).

    James> It just seems really strange that it took such a long
    James> time. Im currently using suse 10 (eval).



Have you checked DMA for all your devices ? I have seen DMA turned off
with Suse in the past (admittedly a few years ago) for some devices
which Suse seemed unsure if they supported DMA. Without DMA, they ran
dog slow. You can sort this out in yast2 Hardware/IDE DMA Mode. (this is
probably unlikely as you would notice your whole system running slowly).
 
If it is a USB problem have a look in /var/log/messages - usually it
tells you what type of connecion it thinks is being made when you plug
the device in. run 'tail -f /var/log/messages' in an xterm as root, and
plug your device in.

Finally, you would probably be better off using rsync instead of cp. It
only transfers files which have changed (although if you are using the
-c (checksum) option it may not be faster). 

Pete