Using Rsync to backup a Windows Share

Question

I have a Windows 7 box that I want to back up to an Ubuntu machine.

I have mounted a Windows share on the Ubuntu box (using CIFS/Samba), and I want to use a cron job to rsync what's on the mounted share to another directory on the Ubuntu box.

1) What would be the recommended rsync settings to copy the folders and files on the Windows share onto the Ubuntu box - bearing in mind that these files may have to be restored back to the Windows machine in the future.

rsync -av /mnt/winshare /home/user/winbackup

2) Are there any pitfalls/things to watch out for, with backing up files from Windows 7 on Ubuntu?

Solution

May I suggest that you look into BURP for backing up Windows using Linux?

Comments

[spelk]

Ah thank you for the information, I am currently using robocopy to back up the data on the Windows PC - but had a spare Ubuntu box and thought I could offload the backup job to that. Looking at the issues, it's probably not worth me trying to offload if there are reliability issues - and the data folders are very active and change a lot.

[Somescout]

Bacula windows client requires commercial license to access to latest version, as far as I know. Public version is not updated for 2 years.

[ErikE]

Additional suggestion in the same genre and very efficient: nongnu.org/rdiff-backup