Rsync command to synchronize two NTFS drives?

Question

I have a 2 1.5TB drives containing numerous video, audio, documents etc that I would like to essentially mirror to 2 other drives for backup. I would like to do this using rsync (as it seems the most appropriate thing to use).

What command should I use to do so? Is there anything to be aware of when rsyncing NTFS partitioned drives/files?

EDIT: To clarify I am running NTFS formatted drives in Kubuntu 10.04 machine. I am rsync'ing the drives from here.

Answer 1

With rsync on unix, use --archive, and don't forget the --sparse and --hard-links options. I don't know if NTFS or the NTFS driver you use (ntfs-3g or kernel) supports sparse files and/or hardlinks, but it's good practice when using rsync for backups.

Also remember that --archive doesn't do --acls and --xattrs, but with NTFS, that doesn't matter.

I don't know how different rsync behaves on a Windows system, though.

Answer 2

If the NTFS partitions are mounted on a *NIX device, rsync is good. If you runing Windos, take a look at ROBOCOPY.EXE (included in free downloadable Resource Kit Tools, if your edition of Windows does not already have it).

rsync -a source dest

is the basic comand, but you better read carefuly the documentation and make some tests before using it as a backup strategy

Answer 3

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&displaylang=en - Microsoft SyncToy 2.1 is a free application that synchronizes files and folders between locations.