[Saturn94]

Today I purchased a new backup USB drive so I can create a 2nd backup copy of my music files and Roon database.  The drive I purchase is the same model and size as one I've been using with the Salkstream III for a few years.

However, the Salksteam doesn't want to connect to the new drive.  When I pull up the list of connected drives using Tera Term, all three drives are listed (internal drive, original USB drive, and the new USB drive).  If I try to mount the new drive, I get a message saying something about not recognizing the exfat format.  The other USB drive that works fine says something like Type ntfs.

What exactly do I need to do to fix it so I can use the new USB drive in addition to the existing USB drive on the Salksteam III?

Thank you.

[srb]

I assume the Salkstream is some distro of Linux, most of which cannot read or write to exFAT without installing some additional exFAT utilities.

The easiest solution would be to just connect the drive to a Windows computer and format it to NTFS.

[jsalk]

That is correct.  Used Windows to format it to NTFS and you will likely be fine.

- Jim

[Saturn94]

Thanks for the quick responses!

Now to look up how to reformat the drive (never done it before). 

[Saturn94]

Ha! Well that was easier than I expected. 

The new drive is now showing up in the Media folder along with the other drive. 

[Saturn94]

Question....

I don’t plan to leave the new drive connected to the Salkstream; just when performing a backup (I’ll store the new drive offsite and just do periodic updates).  Can I simply plug in the drive with the Salkstream on, then unplug it when its done?  Or is there a particular procedure to follow?

[jsalk]

Question....

I don’t plan to leave the new drive connected to the Salkstream; just when performing a backup (I’ll store the new drive offsite and just do periodic updates).  Can I simply plug in the drive with the Salkstream on, then unplug it when its done?  Or is there a particular procedure to follow?

It is always best to unmount the drive first.  The command for that is "umount name of drive as mounted".  Notice, there is no "n" in the umount command.

This insure that any data that might be in a cache and has not yet been written to the drive will be written to it before you unmount it.

- Jim

[Saturn94]

It is always best to unmount the drive first.  The command for that is "umount name of drive as mounted".  Notice, there is no "n" in the umount command.

This insure that any data that might be in a cache and has not yet been written to the drive will be written to it before you unmount it.

- Jim

Thanks. 

[Saturn94]

So I performed a backup of my Roon database and my music files to the new USB drive.  It seemed to go ok.  But when I look at the Music folder size (using my Windows 10 PC) on the two USB drives to confirm everything copied ok, Windows is reporting VASTLY different sizes!  When I look at the folder contents, it appears everything is there on both drives, so I didn’t understand why Windows is reporting such a large discrepancy (on the order of 100’s a gigs!).

A Google search revealed a thread on a Microsoft forum where many people were complaining about Windows not calculating folder sizes correctly, especially if a folder contained sub folders.  Some commented this bug has existed since Windows XP!  Others commented that a Windows 10 update sometime in 2019 fixed this bug, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

I pulled up the Salkstream system info using my web browser to see what it reported for all 3 drives.





What I’m seeing here seems to make sense.  The internal drive has the most space used, presumably since it also contains the OS and the Roon program.  The sdb1 drive, which is the original USB drive, has more space used than the new drive, sdc1, but I assume that’s because that’s where Roon sends automatically scheduled database backups, so there’s more than one database backup there (I have Roon set up for weekly updates, maximum 4 backups).

My apologies for the long post, but the point if all of this is to make sure I have good backups of my music files and Roon database.  Is there a reliable way to confirm everything is as it should be?

Thanks.

[jsalk]

Yes, if you run rsync to either backup drive, Linux will make sure that all files have been copied.  If it finds any files that were not copied, it will copy them.  When rsync concludes, you will get a report indicating what has transpired.  If there is an issue, it will report it.  If you get no new files copied and there are no error messages from rsync, you have a good backup. 

Bottom line...if you have any doubts, simply run rsync again.

- Jim

[Saturn94]

Thanks Jim.

I don’t think I’ve used async before.  What is the command line I would use to run async?

[jsalk]

Sorry, I should have typed rsync not async. 

- Jim

[Saturn94]

Ah, got it. 

[Saturn94]

I finally got the chance to run rsync to both USB drives.  No issues were reported that I could see, so I guess it’s safe to say I have good backups on both USB drives.

Frankly, it’s stuns me Windows is unable to accurately report folder sizes.  You would think something as basic as this would have been figured out many, many years ago!

Thank you SRB and Jim for your help. 

[phoward]

I have a variation on this question. 

No problem when I backed up my music library and Roon database  to a single USB drive.  Liked the idea of having multiple backups on different USB drives.  After completing "rsync -avrz /music /mnt" I then issue the "cd /" and "umount /mnt" commands before taking the backup drive #1 off the Splayer and then plugging in backup drive #2. 

More often than not, I get a "Target is busy" statement from Terminal, and My only work around at this point has been to shut down my Splayer, disconnect the USB drive, wait a few minutes and then restart the Splayer.

I think I must be doing something wrong, but no idea what...

Here's the abbreviated log file after a successful backup to Drive #1

sent 1,659,228,153 bytes  received 187,999 bytes  11,895,456.29 bytes/sec
total size is 773,107,058,639  speedup is 465.89
root@streamplayer / $ cd /
root@streamplayer / $ umount /mnt

AT THIS POINT I REMOVED DRIVE #1 & SWAPPED TO DRIVE #2 USING THE SAME CABLE PLUGGED INTO THE SAME SPLAYER USB CONNECTION

root@streamplayer / $ blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="b1a051b9-66ea-42e5-8af6-1d62221a5bb3" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="000bf16b-01"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="Seagate Expansion Drive" UUID="20A691E6A691BCAA" TYPE="ntfs" PTTYPE="atari" PARTUUID="d7a3afb5-01"
root@streamplayer / $ umount /dev/sdb1
umount: /media/Seagate Expansion Dr: target is busy.

Thoughts?  Recommendations?   Thanks in advance!!!

[jsalk]

I would run the "mount" command before trying to do anything with the second USB drive.  It is likely mounted already.

By running the mount command, you will see a list of mounts.  Look for /dev/sdb1 and see if it is in the list.  You may see it mounted elsewhere in the system.  And you can then use that mount point instead.  It may be something like /media/xxxxxxxxx.

We can do a TeamViewer session if need be to sort this out.

- Jim