8 GB Flash drive formatted at 3.7 GB

[Bill Davidsen]

Marcel Rieux wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 8:36 PM, Mikkel <mikkel at infinity-ltd.com> wrote:
>> On 12/20/2009 06:46 PM, Marcel Rieux wrote:
>>> If you remember well, I said I formatted the drive by right clicking
>>> on the icon.  If you format sdb, an sdb1 partition will be created. If
>>> you don't have a partition, the drive can't be used.
>>>
>> You can format a drive without a partition table, and still
>> format/use it. I am not sure if it would get automatically mounted,
>> but it does work. A partition table, and partition will NOT be
>> created for you. Also, you can have a drive with one partition
>> without that partition being partition 1. ZIP disks were famous for
>> this. For a log time, DOS formatted ZIP disks used partition 4.
>>
>>> The man page does say:
>>>
>>> e2fsck - check a Linux ext2/ext3/ext4 file system
>>>
>>> A file system is not a device. So, the filesystem -- here sdb1 -- must
>>> be specified.
> 
> Note: I answered Bill Davidsen first.
> 
>> You
>> can use an entire drive, or a partition on a drive, as a tar
>> archive. (tar -cvf /dev/sdb /home/mikkel)
> 
> Then, I have no idea where the /sdb1 partition comes from. I also have
> a lost and found directory on that drive.
> 
A thumb drive comes with a single partition, and reformatting that partition as 
ext3 still leaves the partition table intact. The operative word in what I wrote 
is "can" do it either way, what you have is fine, but if you had no partitions 
that wouldn't mean that the drive was unusable.

Since the mount point is "BK" it's likely that somehow you used that as a label 
for putting the ext filesystem on the partition.

As for using the whole drive to hold a tar:
   tar cf /dev/sda /home
works, although
   tar cf - /home | gzip -8 >/dev/sda
lets you put more on the media. I would not guess if the CPU time to compress is 
more or less than the write time for the uncompressed data.

Since you have room for everything, I would suggest that rsync is a good 
solution, it will back up only what changes. Archives are nice but you are 
likely to want to pull an individual file out from time to time.

> Here's an ls:
> 
> 
> ls -al /media/BK/
> total 208
> drwx------.  5 marcel marcel   4096 2009-12-20 20:58 .
> drwxr-xr-x.  3 root root   4096 2009-12-20 22:07 ..
> drwx------.  2 root root  16384 2009-11-25 02:06 lost+found
> drwxrwxr-x. 16 marcel marcel   4096 2009-12-18 00:53 bk
> -rw-rw-r--.  1 marcel marcel 172509 2009-12-20 20:58
> screenshot_pref_applications_firefox.jpg
> drwx------.  4 marcel marcel   4096 2009-12-10 01:58 .Trash-500
> 


-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot