Cannot Delete Old Backups from USB Drive

[bearbait]

   

I have:

Linkstation H-HD250LAN with REV. 2.05 firmware

connected via USB socket on back to a

Buffalo HD-HS500IU2 USB drive - firmware revision unknown

Windoze LAN.

 

The linkstation is set to backup to the usb drive on demand manually, no overwrite i.e. new file each time. Backups are, or are said and appear to be, successful. All other functions appear to work normally, the only strange thing is that I have to switch the USB drive on first if I want to use it otherwise the Linkstation loses contact with the network when the USB drive is switched on.

 

PROBLEM: the USB drive is getting rather full (40%) but when I try to delete old backup folders (or even parts of the folders or just files) it just does not happen. After an eternity of saying "preparing to delete", I tell it to do so and get "Cannot remove folder: Access denied. Make sure etc.....".

 

How can I delete these older backups?

 

Regards

 

bearbait

[disputator]

   

What file system do you use on the USB drive? If it is Fat32 you can write backups to it but via network it is read only. Use a USB connection to a PC and it works.

 

Or do you use ext3?

[bearbait]

   

The status page says FAT16/32 on the usb drive connected to the linkstation. I did think of connecting it direct to the pc but could see no good reason why it should work. You have said it will, so I will try that later.

I do not remember being asked what filesystem should be used during format. What are the advantages of EXT3? How do I select that system during format if it solves my problem?

I may just totally re-format and start again if it has sufficient advantages.

 

Regards

bearbait

[bearbait]

   

Thanks for your advice. I have simply re-formatted and, for some unknown reason, this time it formatted EXT3 despite not showing any options. This may be because I have upgraded the OS from 2.05 to 2.30 since the problem arose.

 

The first new backup is running now. If what you say is true, problem solved.

 

Regards

bearbait

[disputator]

   It is. Why should I lie.

[bearbait]

   

Just call me a decrepit old cynic (I have been in PC's since the start in the 70's).:smileywink:

 

It does work now.

 

Now for the next problem: the backup will not run without an error:mansad:

 

Trying again now, it will take about 6 hours....

 

Regards and thanks again

 

bearbait

[disputator]

   

Hmm, I don't have the device any more but let's see...

 

- delete BU job and recreate it

- deactivate the USB as a network share, does the BU work?

 

If it does not help I would do a reset next and set it up from scratch. After a failed backup a good thing anyway.

(I know, does not look very creative apart from the second idea. I think there was something) Maybe someone else can come up with something better...

 

PS: Doubts are useful, so I never would call you a cynic ;-)

Message Edited by disputator on 05-01-2009 12:41 PM

[bearbait]

   

Thanks for your help and suggestions so far, this is an update on progress:

 

OK, it has been a busy holiday weekend.

1) the backup that I am doing is from/of the linkstation to the usb drive, i.e. I am backing up the linkstation contents.

2) the backup is of 3 folders, one is password protected, the others (media and share) are universally accessible to all.

3) Every attempt to backup all three together in the same session has failed. The backup seems to have been generated as far as the first folder, then it stops but the status says backup is still running (after 12 hours!) I have to power down and restart to get everything working again.

4) I reset linkstation, re-formatted usb drive, tried again. Same problem.

5) Then tried backing up one folder at a time. Large folders (>10GB) failed. Small folder (share, <1GB) worked ok, no error. Interesting.

6) A little thought and it seems to me that it is either a size issue (not uncommon at my age:smileywink:) or, it may be that it is the length of time that the backup is running?

 

After some thought:

In the past I have noticed that the clock in the linkstation is really cr*p so I set it to update from a time server. I am now going to disable this "feature" in case what is happening is that the time update is messing up the timing of the temp files that seem to get generated during backup. I will also be trying some intermediate size folders to see where and if there is a size limit problem.

 

Regards

 

bearbait

PS: Yes, I am also persistent!

 

[disputator]

   

Hi, ja the backup size, I know what you mean - I had to change my wardrobe a lot in the past couple of years.

 

IMHO the problem is not the size, more the amount of files.The CPU resources are limited and copy a folder with 100s of files takes a lot. If you split large amout of files in two or more jobs it should work better. You can see it if you copy some stuff manually, starts fast, slows down and if it is too much the unit freezes.

 

So its like real life, big is OK just too many of it in one room becomes a problem. Goes well along with my own experience.

[bearbait]

   

I regret that I have had to give up for now (some work has come in).

1) tried making usb drive not shared: did not work.

2) tried turing off NTP: did not work.

3) tried reducing number of files by splitting up into smaller jobs: this did work BUT the number had to be reduced so far (from > 20,000 files to less than 1,000) that the number of jobs became unwieldy. The other problem is that it meant some top level folders had to be split (photos) making it very messy.

4) Even at less than 1,000 files, the video store would not back up, that had only about 20 files in it but all large (1 -> 2GBytes each).

 

It seems that there is more than one factor at work here.

 

I will get back to this "some time soon". In the mean time I am re-thinking my backup strategy. I will probably use a cron script to back up the linkstation to a Ubuntu Linux box that I also have on the network, all this will need is an additional removable hard drive and cradle at about £70. I don't think that the usb drive would be fast enough to complete overnight.

 

In the meantime the 500GByte usb drive will just sit there and look pretty.

 

So, thanks again for the support.

 

Regards

 

bearbait