I may have found the (hardware) problem. For an unrelated reason I moved the disk to a different USB port on the same computer. My script has now been running for quite a while and written about 90 Gb of data with (so far) no problem.
The new disk is USB 3.0 (2.0 compatible) but the computer is USB 2.0. I haven't found any information about this on the Internet, but I suspect that despite being compatible, the 3.0 spec may be less tolerant of hardware faults on the computer. But that's only a guess. BTW - Shlomi - thanks for your suggestion. I've been using ReiserFS since Mandrake 7 (if I remember correctly that's about 13 years ago) with no problems, but of course on a new disk, you could be right. If I do have further problems, I'll try ext4. On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 10:14:37 +0200 Shlomi Fish <shlo...@shlomifish.org> wrote: > Hi Shlomo, > > On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:52:47 +0200 > Shlomo Solomon <shlomo.solo...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > short version: > > I have a new USB external drive. The script I used on my old disk > > crashes randomly after the disk mysteriously becomes read-only. > > Re-mounting solves the problem. I suspect a hardware problem, but > > can't prove it and I'm sure if I go to BUG with the disk they'll say > > "It doesn't support Linux. That's your problem" > > > > long version: > > I bought a new LaCie Minimus 2Tb as a backup drive. My existing > > backup drive is a WD Elements 1Tb and I have a script that uses > > rsync to backup all my partitions. The backup script works fine on > > the old disk. Here's a sample line from the script: > > rsync -rlvtogS --delete --ignore-errors /data2 $MOUNT/data > > > > BTW - all the partitions being backed up are on my box and the USB > > backup disk is also connected to the same box - Mandriva 2011.0 with > > all updates installed. > > > > The first thing I did was to delete the pre-installed Windows > > partition and create a ReiserFS partition (same as on the existing > > disk). > > I have no direct idea about your problem, but I had a bad experience > with ReiserFS back in the time (on non-external hard drives), and > later used XFS, ext3 and ext4 without any particular problems so far. > > For all I know it may be a problem with ReiserFS and I would suggest > using a different file system. If that doesn't help with this > particular problem, then you can try filing a bug on > https://bugzilla.kernel.org/ . > > Regards, > > Shlomi Fish > -- Shlomo Solomon http://the-solomons.net Sent by Claws Mail 3.7.9 - KDE 4.6.5 - LINUX Mandriva 2011.0 _______________________________________________ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
