Incremental backups from snapshot to USB drive not working

How is the USB drive formatted?

It's ext3.

Hi, I am having the same problem. Everytime a on incremental backup is run in reality a full backup is performed.

I am backing up from readynas NV+ to a Seagate GoFlex 3TB USB drive attached to a Readynas 2100.
The USB drive is formatted as EXT3

Note that my problem doesn't involve any sort of backup across the network, it's just from the NVX to a locally attached USB drive.

Help me Ewok, you're my only hope! I haven't found any answers in the manual, via Google, or on the forum.
Any help is much appreciated.

I've been able to replicate this on two different NVXs, both with and without snapshots.

I did some digging under the hood and found that local backups are run using the following:
cp -vua '.' $'/my_usb_drive/' &> ${TEMP_COPYLOG}

cp does not copy incrementally, it only copies all files. So maybe it's not possible to do incremental backups to a local USB drive, even though the web interface makes it look like you can?

I have the same issue but I am copying a share on a windows 2008 server to a Netgear RND 6320. Both the devices are connected to the same switch and have dedicated gigabit connections. My network management tools show no problems on the network. I am doing CIFS backup using windows timestamp and NOT usign Rsync. We backup about 7TB incremental. But, it almost takes the same time as a first time backup. My PM claims that many of the files that are opened for read-only are being backed up. Just not sure what is going on? Frustrated with this product and Netgear support is not very good either:(

Are the timestamps being changed on the source side?

bryanz wrote:

I've been able to replicate this on two different NVXs, both with and without snapshots. I did some digging under the hood and found that local backups are run using the following: cp -vua '.' $'/my_usb_drive/' &> ${TEMP_COPYLOG} cp does not copy incrementally, it only copies all files. So maybe it's not possible to do incremental backups to a local USB drive, even though the web interface makes it look like you can?

I read from cp's man page:
-a, --archive same as -dR --preserve=all
-u, --update copy only when the SOURCE file is newer than the destination file or when the destination file is missing

To me it seems like cp should manage incremental backups.

But I have this problem too. Every backup is a full backup
-Bjørn

Looking at the logs again, it now looks limke the backups are incremental, although not perfectly. Some files are copied again even if they are not changed or new. But anyway; it seems better.