Hi All,
Just wondering what the appropriate method of copying files from my SLES 9 (Running OES but to be decommissioned) server to a big NTFS formatted drive would be.
I can see the USB drive when I connect it using lsusb but navigating to its mount point I can’t read it.
I read you can get 3g-NTFS that will allow this to occur, but none of what I read was SuSE specific so I wasn’t sure whether it was relevant or not.
Any assistance on this would be appreciated.
Thanks
Dave
dwiseman2 wrote:
[color=blue]
Just wondering what the appropriate method of copying files from my
SLES 9 (Running OES but to be decommissioned) server to a big NTFS
formatted drive would be.[/color]
If you’re running OES, can you not install a Novell Client on the
system that has the big NTFS drive or use a workstation that has a
Novell Client installed that can see both the OES system and the one
with the big NTFS drive?
How much data are you trying to copy?
–
Kevin Boyle - Knowledge Partner
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
show your appreciation and click on the star below…
150GB
Tried that, it crashes the machine copying it. Tried multiple machines too.
Other option I haven’t tried yet is copying the whole volume using winscp or something. But I thought it may have been a better option to copy it to the USB on the server itself instead.
dwiseman2 wrote:
[color=blue]
150GB
Tried that, it crashes the machine copying it. Tried multiple machines
too.[/color]
[color=blue]
Other option I haven’t tried yet is copying the whole volume using
winscp or something. But I thought it may have been a better option to
copy it to the USB on the server itself instead.[/color]
150 GB is not a huge amount of data… 
When you say “it crashes the machine copying it” are you referring the
the OES server or the workstation?
I would make sure your OES server is fully patched and that you are
using a current version of the Novell Client. If your system crashes,
it might be worth taking a quick look to see if the cause is obvious
and if there is a workaround.
If you attach an external drive via USB there are additional issues;
I like your idea of using WinSCP. If you can’t transfer with the Novell
Client, I think you will have a better chance to complete the transfer
by running WinSCP on the system with the NTFS drive rather than trying
to copy to an NTFS formatted from your SLES system. WinSCP will copy
file by file and not the volume itself. Since the original filesystem
is not modified, you have little to lose by trying.
–
Kevin Boyle - Knowledge Partner
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
show your appreciation and click on the star below…
Hi dwiseman2,
[QUOTE=dwiseman2;17939]150GB
Tried that, it crashes the machine copying it. Tried multiple machines too.[/QUOTE]
from what I read, you’re copying on the SLES9 machine. When your machine is “crashing”, what copy mechanism were you trying?
Might it be that your impression “crashes the machine” is caused by massive “i/o waits” in conjunction with FS buffer starvation? 150GB is not that much data, but when pushing that onto a slow disk (and I feel safe to assume that it’s no USB3-attached SSD you’re trying to copy to) all that data goes into the file system cache, which is far less in size. Depending on the I/O scheduler and its settings, this usually has a severe impact on the responsiveness of the whole system, as other applications that are trying to write to their files go through the same mechanisms and are effectively throttled because of your copy job.
OTOH, maybe your transfer mechanism (especially when going over the network via scp, which usually doesn’t involve file system write caching on the sending side) is too quick, compared to the read speed of the source media? Then the reads of other applications might be impacted, again giving the impression of a hanging system.
I recommend to accompany any such copy job with a run of “vmstat 1” in a separate shell on the SLES9 server - that way you can better see and judge the impact (and determine if it’s really a “hang” or just high i/o wait).
Regards,
Jens
On 09/12/2013 21:44, dwiseman2 wrote:
[color=blue]
Other option I haven’t tried yet is copying the whole volume using
winscp or something. But I thought it may have been a better option to
copy it to the USB on the server itself instead.[/color]
rsync? Whilst developed for UNIX & Linux it’s also been ported to
Windows and Macs.
Simon
SUSE Knowledge Partner
Thanks for the replies guys.
Just to clarify a couple of points -
The machine that was crashing was the windows machine when trying to copy using the novell client. BSOD after a period of copying.
I think I’m going to do it via WinSCP. Just seems like the cleanest way to do it, even though it may take a bit longer.
Thanks for the tips everyone. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Dave
On 13/12/2013 04:54, dwiseman2 wrote:
[color=blue]
Just to clarify a couple of points -
The machine that was crashing was the windows machine when trying to
copy using the novell client. BSOD after a period of copying.[/color]
Well my first thought is well that’s Windows for you … ! 
Re-reading all your posts in this thread you’ve never told us which
version of Windows or Novell Client you are using. There have certainly
been newer releases of the Novell Client since OES (v1) was released.
[color=blue]
I think I’m going to do it via WinSCP. Just seems like the cleanest way
to do it, even though it may take a bit longer.Thanks for the tips everyone. I’ll let you know how it goes.[/color]
Simon
SUSE Knowledge Partner