Trying to create a backup from External Drive A (exFAT) to External Drive B (Mac OS ExtendJournaled)

[Kento726]

Hi!

I need some help in deciding on how to go about in creating a back up of my hard drive. I would REALLY appreciate any help!!

Scenario:
-I have a desktop external HD WD MyBook 4TB (Let's call this HD-A) that I used to store all of my work and images
-This drive is formatted as an exFAT because I use it for both on my Mac and my Bootcamp Windows 7
-I had a close call where the drive corrupted and almost lost everything on this drive
-I do not keep any files stored on my internal SSD
-I bought another desktop external HD WD MyBook Elements 4TB (let's call this HD-B) to create a back up of all of my files

Problem:
-I can't just do a TimeMachine backup of HD-A because it's formatted as an exFAT
-There are a lot of problems in simply copying files over HD-A to HD-B because i come across error -36, or some other problems where certain files among the 100k+ files in HD-A cannot transfer
-When these files fail to copy over, the transfer stop and have to repeat the process all over again
-I feel like files will go missing if I do the copy and paste route
-I tried the dot_clean function to fix the -36 problem but it doesn't help
-I tried using superduper to clone the HD-A but it apparently doesn't support exFAT
-I can't format HD-A because I don't have any back ups of any of those files inside

What I want to do:
-Make a backup of the files in HD-A without losing anything in the process
-Partition HD-B to two parts
Parition A - 3.85TB to MAC OS Journaled - This is where all my work, personal, and sensitive files are stored
Parition B - 150GB to exFAT - this is to do anything that is related to my Bootcamp (not too important. mainly games)
-Clone the files in HD-A to HD-B Partition A so that I can format HD-A (which is an older HD of the two) into MAC OS Journaled
-HD-B Parition A then becomes the main HD for me to store files
-HD-A becomes the TimeMachine backup of HD-B Parition A


Anyone know how I can efficiently/successfully clone what I have in HD-A so that I can set up this TimeMachine set up?

Thank you in advance to those who has a solution

 

[Fishrrman]

"-I do not keep any files stored on my internal SSD"

Cough. That's what the internal SSD is for. Storing files.
I suggest you start keeping the important ones there. (your "work, personal, and sensitive" files)
Keep the less-important ones on an external.

"-Make a backup of the files in HD-A without losing anything in the process
-Partition HD-B to two parts
Parition A - 3.85TB to MAC OS Journaled - This is where all my work, personal, and sensitive files are stored
Parition B - 150GB to exFAT"

I suggest that you DO NOT DO THIS.
Instead, USE TWO DRIVES.
Have one set up for HFS.
Have the other for exFat.
Things just work better that way.

I think that CarbonCopyCloner can clone files from exFAT to HFS+.
I just tried opening CCC, and it was able to "mount for cloning" an exFAT drive that I have.
However, I DO NOT KNOW if CCC can clone -to- an exFAT drive. I don't think it can.

Here's what I'd suggest you try.
First, you'll need CCC. You can download and use it FREE for the first 30 days:
http://www.bombich.com/download.html
Put it into your applications folder.

Now, open CCC.
On the left, there is a pop-up menu from which you select your source drive.
Can you open your WD MyBook drive there?
If so, "you're in".

Now, you're going to need TWO "target drives" -- one for HFS, and one for exFAT.
Let's work with the HFS drive first.

Connect the HFS drive, that's empty and ready to receive files. It goes to the right of the source drive in CCC's window.

Now... underneath the source drive, there's a popup menu:
- clone all files
- clone selected files

You want "clone selected files".
A list with checkboxes will appear.

Now -- you've got a lot of work to do.
You're going to have to start working your way down that list.
You want to select (check) all the "Mac" files (things you use in the Mac OS).
You want to DEselect (uncheck) all the "BootCamp" and related stuff.

When done, click the clone button.

What's going to happen next:
CCC will clone all the selected files from the WD drive to the target drive.
IF it encounters "a bad file" (a file that can't be copied), it will "make a note" of the filename in its log, and keep right on going.
When done, you can check the list to ascertain the bad files that couldn't be copied.
NOTE: the finder can't do this. If it tries to copy a bunch of files, and encounters a bad one, the finder will abort the entire copy process -- and won't even tell you which file stopped it.
This is why CCC is SUPERIOR to the finder for copying a large number of files.

As for the files destined for exFAT, I can't help too much.
If you know what they are, you could TRY copying small blocks of them, a little at a time.
You'll need to keep HANDWRITTEN NOTES so you don't miss things.

One last bit of advice:
Do you really REALLY need the ability to "boot the Mac into Windows"?
Or... could you do with an "emulation solution" such as Parallels, VMWare fusion, or "Virtual Box"?
BootCamp can be more trouble than it's worth...

 

[chown33]

Try Carbon Copy Cloner.


I just did a test with 2 disk-images I created. The 1st one I made ExFAT. Then I used the 'cp' command in Terminal to copy a bunch of files and folders to it. That worked fine.

The 2nd disk-image I made was JHFS+. Then I ran CCC, and had it copy the ExFAT volume to the JHFS+ volume. This worked.

Finally, I used the FileMerge developer tool (Apple) to compare one dmg against the other. There were no differences in the files.

If CCC gets an error, it will keep going, and tell you about all the errors at the end. I don't recall if that's a Preference or not, so you should probably read CCC's docs regarding how it handles errors.

CCC will also do multiple runs, and it only copies things that differ. If something wasn't copied the first time, or the two don't match, then CCC copies, otherwise it skips.


Personally, I'd only use ExFAT as a transfer medium between systems, not a storage medium.

For example get a USB thumb drive or an SD card (my preference), and only copy things onto it for transfer, then copy them off to the destination. That way if there's a problem, you'll see it right away, instead of at some time long afterward. If there's a transfer problem, you can redo the transfer, because the original is still there. And if the ExFAT media gets borked, you can reformat it immediately; there's nothing on it you need to save.

 

[Kento726]

"-I do not keep any files stored on my internal SSD"

Cough. That's what the internal SSD is for. Storing files.
I suggest you start keeping the important ones there. (your "work, personal, and sensitive" files)
Keep the less-important ones on an external.

"-Make a backup of the files in HD-A without losing anything in the process
-Partition HD-B to two parts
Parition A - 3.85TB to MAC OS Journaled - This is where all my work, personal, and sensitive files are stored
Parition B - 150GB to exFAT"

I suggest that you DO NOT DO THIS.
Instead, USE TWO DRIVES.
Have one set up for HFS.
Have the other for exFat.
Things just work better that way.

I think that CarbonCopyCloner can clone files from exFAT to HFS+.
I just tried opening CCC, and it was able to "mount for cloning" an exFAT drive that I have.
However, I DO NOT KNOW if CCC can clone -to- an exFAT drive. I don't think it can.

Here's what I'd suggest you try.
First, you'll need CCC. You can download and use it FREE for the first 30 days:
http://www.bombich.com/download.html
Put it into your applications folder.

Now, open CCC.
On the left, there is a pop-up menu from which you select your source drive.
Can you open your WD MyBook drive there?
If so, "you're in".

Now, you're going to need TWO "target drives" -- one for HFS, and one for exFAT.
Let's work with the HFS drive first.

Connect the HFS drive, that's empty and ready to receive files. It goes to the right of the source drive in CCC's window.

Now... underneath the source drive, there's a popup menu:
- clone all files
- clone selected files

You want "clone selected files".
A list with checkboxes will appear.

Now -- you've got a lot of work to do.
You're going to have to start working your way down that list.
You want to select (check) all the "Mac" files (things you use in the Mac OS).
You want to DEselect (uncheck) all the "BootCamp" and related stuff.

When done, click the clone button.

What's going to happen next:
CCC will clone all the selected files from the WD drive to the target drive.
IF it encounters "a bad file" (a file that can't be copied), it will "make a note" of the filename in its log, and keep right on going.
When done, you can check the list to ascertain the bad files that couldn't be copied.
NOTE: the finder can't do this. If it tries to copy a bunch of files, and encounters a bad one, the finder will abort the entire copy process -- and won't even tell you which file stopped it.
This is why CCC is SUPERIOR to the finder for copying a large number of files.

As for the files destined for exFAT, I can't help too much.
If you know what they are, you could TRY copying small blocks of them, a little at a time.
You'll need to keep HANDWRITTEN NOTES so you don't miss things.

One last bit of advice:
Do you really REALLY need the ability to "boot the Mac into Windows"?
Or... could you do with an "emulation solution" such as Parallels, VMWare fusion, or "Virtual Box"?
BootCamp can be more trouble than it's worth...

Hi! Thank you for the real in-depth response. This really helped me.

Unfortunately my SSD that I have in my Mac Pro late 2013 is only 250GB which is significantly too small for what I do.
(I'm a photographer and I have images accumulated over the years that adds up to 1.5TB). If I am not mistaken, I was under the impression that having a decluttered internal SSD improves performance of my computer while working off of an external HD to store files. Correct me if I am wrong.

I'm not sure if I was clear on why I was partitioning HD-B but I wanted to partition HD-B one to MAC OS Journaled so that I can make an automated timemachine backup using HD-A. The second partition in HD-B is only to store games because like the Mac, I also don't have a lot of space in the internal SSD to store any programs and files to begin with. I like to use Bootcamp because games just run better than it does on parallel.

But getting the files into the exFAT partition is not the problem but rather getting the files off of them.

Thank you for recommending me CCC and it seems to be working flawlessly (I'm cloning 2.5TB worth of data onto my new drive right now).

I do all of my photography work on my Mac and I don't need to ever access these files when I am on my windows. However having an exFAT parition so that I can still use a little bit of the MyBook storage to store any games on my Windows is kind of what I was looking to do without having to buy another external HD in the process.

Also, just out of curiosity, HFS+ and Mac OS Journaled is the same thing?

Again thank you for the in-depth response! I am ever so grateful.

Try Carbon Copy Cloner.


I just did a test with 2 disk-images I created. The 1st one I made ExFAT. Then I used the 'cp' command in Terminal to copy a bunch of files and folders to it. That worked fine.

The 2nd disk-image I made was JHFS+. Then I ran CCC, and had it copy the ExFAT volume to the JHFS+ volume. This worked.

Finally, I used the FileMerge developer tool (Apple) to compare one dmg against the other. There were no differences in the files.

If CCC gets an error, it will keep going, and tell you about all the errors at the end. I don't recall if that's a Preference or not, so you should probably read CCC's docs regarding how it handles errors.

CCC will also do multiple runs, and it only copies things that differ. If something wasn't copied the first time, or the two don't match, then CCC copies, otherwise it skips.


Personally, I'd only use ExFAT as a transfer medium between systems, not a storage medium.

For example get a USB thumb drive or an SD card (my preference), and only copy things onto it for transfer, then copy them off to the destination. That way if there's a problem, you'll see it right away, instead of at some time long afterward. If there's a transfer problem, you can redo the transfer, because the original is still there. And if the ExFAT media gets borked, you can reformat it immediately; there's nothing on it you need to save.

Thank you for testing the program! Like I mentioned above, I'm trying this right now and it still have 5 more hours to go. I'm am just glad there was a way to clone files in an exFAT to a drive that supports TimeMachine. I'll keep you guys updated on how it goes!

Thank you,
Kento

 

[Fishrrman]

"(I'm a photographer and I have images accumulated over the years that adds up to 1.5TB). If I am not mistaken, I was under the impression that having a decluttered internal SSD improves performance of my computer while working off of an external HD to store files. Correct me if I am wrong."

Ok. You're not wrong.
You can use an external drive (HDD or SSD), formatted to HFS, to store the photo library externally.
Nothing wrong with that.

It DOES make sense to keep plenty of room on the internal SSD for "breathing room".

So... keep the photo library on the external drive, BUT...
...my recommendation is that you DO NOT USE Time Machine to back it up.
Instead, using a cloning app (either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper) to clone your "primary storage external drive" to a backup external drive.

You probably want TWO backup drives of really important data.
CCC can do them both.

"Thank you for recommending me CCC and it seems to be working flawlessly (I'm cloning 2.5TB worth of data onto my new drive right now)."

Then you're getting a demonstration as to how good an app CCC is.
It will continue to serve you well in the future.
I wouldn't mess with TM -- I've read of too many folks let down by it.

"Also, just out of curiosity, HFS+ and Mac OS Journaled is the same thing?"

Yes. They are the same thing.

Again, keep the "exFAT stuff" on a SEPARATE DRIVE for that purpose.
I would not "mix" HFS and exFAT on the same drive.
Just safer to keep them apart, in my opinion.