Moving files with 'mv' still leaves files behind: Should I use rsync instead

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#1

I am using the command mv to move files and directories from one mounted drive to another mounted drive.

LIke

mv -v /storage/storage1/* /storage/storage7/

It took a while to move 6TB of data over to my new 20TB harddrive.
When it was finished I noticed that the old harddrive still had some directories and files left. Not everything got “deleted”. I had turned on verbose so I could see that ‘mv’ did first copy then remove.

So I decided to run diff -r /storage/storage2 /storage/storage1, to see if there was a difference between the files that was left on the old harddrive, and the ones that got copied to the new harddrive. One video file did differ.

I don’t want to do the diff again for the rest I need to copy. The diff has been running for almost 12 hours and not yet finished.

Is using rsync a better option to move files from one harddrive to another? I want to preserve everything about the files and every metadata about them.

#2

The “*” does not match all files, which might be why some were left.

Personally, I use “rsync” for copying. But only you can decide what is best for you.

#3

It is storage2 in one case and storage7 in another case.

#4

It was an error.
It should be:

mv -v /storage/storage1/* /storage/storage8/
diff -r /storage/storage1 /storage/storage8

I have 8 harddrives. I was moving from one of the old ones to my new 20TB harddrive.

#5

For the rest of the old harddrives I will now use the rsync with these options.

rsync --verbose --recursive --human-readable --progress --executability \
--acls --xattrs --perms --owner --group --times --devices --specials --links \
--remove-source-files /storage/storage2 /storage/storage8
#6

When I am running rsync now from the /storage/storage1 drive, on the files that was left behind, I got some errors.

Warning PATH/TO/FILE failed verification - update discarded (will try again)
rsync read errors mapping "/storage/storage1/PATH/TO/FILE" Input/Output error (5)

I just hope the files I copied yesterday, that reside on the new harddrive really are OK.
Perhaps I need to run some filecheck tool on them. Worst case, they are gone, least worst case I have to “download” them again (if available).

Now I really wish I had backups.