loss of data - if trying to backup with dolphin - commandline is the way to go!?

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1

dear community,

currently doing a backup of my notebook

and doing so i have made some interesting experiences

if i copy the directory - home/my_name from hdd to external drive

  • with dolphin i get a loss of data rangning form 10 to 15 GB - in other words up to 15 percent
    **
    questions :
    **
    a- is it more appropiate to do this job with commaandline?
    b- where does this loss of data come from
    c- can i make sure that i have no loss - with any version / method

  • i would prefer to go the command line way

any ideas

2

Are you including the hidden directories? I assume you are using the GUI???

Note also it is better too use the command line or backup utility and not include /home. /home is the mount point just the stuff in home not home itself

Also note if the external hard drive is foramtted with MS file system you will lose the permission info and you may have problems restoring it correctly.

3

On 2015-07-07 17:36, dilbertone wrote:
> - with dolphin i get a loss of data rangning form 10 to 15 GB - in other
> words up to 15 percent

How do you know that? Are not the files you told it to copy not copied?
Are the copies bad?

In any of those cases, you found a terrible bug, and you must report
ASAP in Bugzilla.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

4

It would never have occurred to me, to use Dolphin for a backup. Still, it should work if you remember to include all of the hidden file (files whose name begins with “.”.

I would normally use the command line:


cd destination-directory
( cd source-directory  && tar cf - . ) | tar xpf -
5

This command will give you a list of files that are missing in the backup:

diff -r /path/to/datasource/ /path/to/backup/

If it gives no output, it means there are no files missing.

It might be useful to find out what kind of files got omitted - it might be hidden files (especially if you entered the home folder and selected all, then copied), it might be something about permissions of some files.

Also as others said: how did you determine that files are missing? If you used different file browser, it might have told you once GB and once GiB (which would be ~7% difference).

You can also determine the size from command line:

du -hs /folder/

If this output differs, you really have something missing.

And finally, if you were backing up to a removable harddrive/flash drive and removed it after dolphin finished the operation but before the data from cache got really written, that might be another potential source of the problem.
You can always ensure that all data got written by using the command sync and waiting for it to return.

6

hello @ all

many thanks for the hints and tipps. They are - as allways - very very supportive.

i will take all the ideas into account and do some additional steps to find out what goes on here.

i come back later the week and report all findings

regards dilbert