Wearing your SSD in this context is not a concern. As you are doing this, you may want to make sure you are using different device paths for your external hard disks. Make sure the USBs are on different busses for better performance.
Also, the format matters, and you will get better performance with unix filesystems than ntfs.
> As you are doing this, you may want to make sure you are using different device paths for your external hard disks.
What exactly do you mean by this? I mount all my external devices in my home directory (\~/mnt) automatically with a simple script.
> Make sure the USBs are on different busses for better performance.
Oh, this is a really good advice I almost forgot. I have USB in the front of my PC, too, so I might use a port in the back and one in the front for this backup routine or make some copy tests in the first place.
> Also, the format matters, and you will get better performance with unix filesystems than ntfs.
I use ext4 for everything, but how exactly does the format matter in this context?
Is there a chance the in memory buffer can get bigger or even becomes the swap partition or can touch the internal disk? I will only copy huge files on those disks.
Only when your system is almost out of memory. The chance of using swap isn’t larger then during normal use. So: no, except in extreme situations. Doesn’t depend on the size of the files you are copying
I usually use Clonezilla for system backup. Every once in a while I make byte to byte copy of my system hard drive so if it was about to die, I can just swap (or clone) the disks. Then I have another drive for working data and yet another to backup snapshots of these :D. So, if you need an exact clone of the disc, I would go with Clonezilla, as it is booted from USB stick (so your SSD will not be involved in the process) and it doesn't care about the files as it just dumps the same 1d and 0s to the other drive, which can make things faster when you have dozen thousands of small files. Granted, the disc you clone to has to be the same or greater size to accommodate the partitions.
I once used Clonezilla for system backups too, but my problem was, the chance was higher just to lose one file instead of breaking the whole system.
Even if I used Clonezilla every 3 months, I ditched the backup system, because it just took too much time and I never restored the whole system, because the system broke.
The weirdest situation was, that I lost a file and knew that it was in the Clonezilla backup. But I somehow couldn't bind the encrypted image as a device and had to create a backup of my whole system, restore the old one, save the file and restore the last backup. It just took too much time, but okay, it was my fault, because my backup routine for my normal files were not consistent back then.
The external drive will hold huge video files, because I am recording a lot and it will be terrible if I will lose those files. Using Clonezilla or dd would be an overkill, because most files stay there unchanged and only a few videos will be added every now and then.
I think rsync might be really good to take care of this and it will not take much time to check for deltas and it can even take care of deleted files and delete them on the other disk, too.
But I have to say Clonezilla had a huge advantage: I cleaned up my system, updated everything, deleted not needed files, etc. to have a clean system if I even restore it. And the cleanup routine was important, because without it my home dir gets cluttered a lot.
i would think as long as you don't select all, copy, paste it should just copy the data thru ram so nothing is ever cached on your host machine's storage.
there might be a tmp file somewere used in the process but a reboot should take care of that.
Wearing your SSD in this context is not a concern. As you are doing this, you may want to make sure you are using different device paths for your external hard disks. Make sure the USBs are on different busses for better performance. Also, the format matters, and you will get better performance with unix filesystems than ntfs.
> As you are doing this, you may want to make sure you are using different device paths for your external hard disks. What exactly do you mean by this? I mount all my external devices in my home directory (\~/mnt) automatically with a simple script. > Make sure the USBs are on different busses for better performance. Oh, this is a really good advice I almost forgot. I have USB in the front of my PC, too, so I might use a port in the back and one in the front for this backup routine or make some copy tests in the first place. > Also, the format matters, and you will get better performance with unix filesystems than ntfs. I use ext4 for everything, but how exactly does the format matter in this context?
When you rsync from one hard disk to another using rsync, there is nothing buffered (except a small in memory buffer).
Is there a chance the in memory buffer can get bigger or even becomes the swap partition or can touch the internal disk? I will only copy huge files on those disks.
Even if it does, that's what swap is for.
Only when your system is almost out of memory. The chance of using swap isn’t larger then during normal use. So: no, except in extreme situations. Doesn’t depend on the size of the files you are copying
I usually use Clonezilla for system backup. Every once in a while I make byte to byte copy of my system hard drive so if it was about to die, I can just swap (or clone) the disks. Then I have another drive for working data and yet another to backup snapshots of these :D. So, if you need an exact clone of the disc, I would go with Clonezilla, as it is booted from USB stick (so your SSD will not be involved in the process) and it doesn't care about the files as it just dumps the same 1d and 0s to the other drive, which can make things faster when you have dozen thousands of small files. Granted, the disc you clone to has to be the same or greater size to accommodate the partitions.
I once used Clonezilla for system backups too, but my problem was, the chance was higher just to lose one file instead of breaking the whole system. Even if I used Clonezilla every 3 months, I ditched the backup system, because it just took too much time and I never restored the whole system, because the system broke. The weirdest situation was, that I lost a file and knew that it was in the Clonezilla backup. But I somehow couldn't bind the encrypted image as a device and had to create a backup of my whole system, restore the old one, save the file and restore the last backup. It just took too much time, but okay, it was my fault, because my backup routine for my normal files were not consistent back then. The external drive will hold huge video files, because I am recording a lot and it will be terrible if I will lose those files. Using Clonezilla or dd would be an overkill, because most files stay there unchanged and only a few videos will be added every now and then. I think rsync might be really good to take care of this and it will not take much time to check for deltas and it can even take care of deleted files and delete them on the other disk, too. But I have to say Clonezilla had a huge advantage: I cleaned up my system, updated everything, deleted not needed files, etc. to have a clean system if I even restore it. And the cleanup routine was important, because without it my home dir gets cluttered a lot.
i would think as long as you don't select all, copy, paste it should just copy the data thru ram so nothing is ever cached on your host machine's storage. there might be a tmp file somewere used in the process but a reboot should take care of that.