Tar Backups and Size Limits

[Zachary]

Fat filesystems have a 2 GB limit on file size, I believe.  An LDP howto 
mentioned how to get around this, as I recall.
Hope this helps, but if not, I've no idea what to say.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Holmes" <steve at holmesgrown.com>
To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 12:24 AM
Subject: Tar Backups and Size Limits


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> Hey, I'm trying to backup my linux system (home directories to a 200
> GB external drive using tar.  It seems that there is an upper size
> limit either due to the fat32 file system on this external drive or
> tar.  I can't emagine tar having imposed any limits.  So I tried to
> use -M multi-volume option and a -L limit of 4GB.  It got through the
> first file seemingly ok and it put up the prompt to start the next
> file.  Well, I figured tar would just go ahead and create the next
> file with a different suffix or something.  Well, it appears that it
> did not.  When I looked in another console I saw that the size of the
> second archive started over as I would expect but it is actually the
> original file.  In other words, I think the back procedure is
> overlaying the first file.  The tar command I used is:
> tar -cvf archive.tar -M -L 4000000 FILES...
>
> I figured later I would do incremental backups against this tar file.
> Am I missing something? If I reformatted my external drive as ext3 or
> something, I could probably have done all this without size limits but
> I also intend to use this same drive to backup my winblows boxes as
> well.  This is a 200 GB drive with a pre configured VFAT single
> partition.
>
> Any ideas out there? Thanks.
>
> - -- 
> HolmesGrown Solutions
> The best solutions for the best price!
> http://ld.net/?holmesgrown
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