Tar Backups and Size Limits

[Janina Sajka]

I don't recall the actual partition limit on FAT32, but you're bumping
into one of the MS partition ceilings.

If your Windows boxes are connected via your LAN, I suggest you format
your backup drive ext3, and use dd piped to tar and bunzip to back them
up overnight to this drive. That way you can avoid this problem and the
myriad hassles that will continue to plague you with.

Steve Holmes writes:
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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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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Chair
				Accessibility Workgroup
				Free Standards Group (FSG)

janina at freestandards.org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040