cp -ru -> using the recursive copy and update in linux from my internal drive to a mounted nas

Question

I've mounted my NAS drive under the /media/ directory. I've copied a bunch of files from my current /var/www directory, using cp -Rpv (preserve). Now I want to do a

cp -Rup /var/www/ /media/magneto/testing.cdw/

Based on the fact that these are two different file systems, i.e. one is a networked NAS connected through Samba, and the other is my computers internal drive.

Will I run into problems with the date and time? how can I check before I run the copy?

Answer 1

According to the man page for cp, -p should certainly preserve the timestamps. I don't think that the filesystem would cause an issue.

Answer 2

If you want to have differential updates to a filesystem then the de facto tool to use is rsync. You can run it in dry-run mode (-n) to see which files it will transfer before the actual operation.

Answer 3

The safest thing to do is copy 1 small file, then test.

Over a network connection, rsync provides better options for recovery than cp -R, as in my experience, bulk copies to NAS often run into problems.

Whether or not date and time copy properly will depend on a number of factors, including the underlying FS on the NAS, and quite how the NAS is exposing SMB/CIFS - this can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, and browser-configured permissions aren't always quite what you expect.

Answer 4

I have also a NAS on my LAN, I'm using cronjobs to rsync data from 3 LAN nux machines to the NAS. rsync is using ssh so you just need to make sure of public/private key exchanges between both machines. I'm using keychain for this. This works perfectly in my case. No stress about backups then.