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Hi All: I am using ubuntu 21.10 and trying to copy 500 Gig from one portable hard drive ( using WD Passport but I doubt that matters ) to another portable hard drive ( also WD Passport ). It's been going on for four days and I can't wake the ubuntu machine up in order to see what's happening. The screen is just black. But the lights on the portable drive that is being copied to are blinking so something seems to be going on.

When I used rsync, I didn't use any parameters which based on what I've read was probably a mistake. Should I stop the process and start over and use some parameters ? Even if I should, I don't know to wake my ubuntu up so I can type commands. I think that the copying process has just taken over the machine's memory so I can't do anything.

I don't mind starting over but I'm scared of losing the 500 Gig on the portable that's being copied from. Is there a way to wake up ubuntu and stop the whole process and re-start it but make it faster ? I think, after 4 days, something is not right ? Thanks.

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    Copying large amounts of data between external devices will saturate the USB channels, resulting in a heck of a slowdown. What is the brand/model of the computer itself? Are you copying over USB3? USB2? Are the external disks USB3? What is the file system you are copying to? With this information, it will be possible to sit down with a calculator to figure out how much time a machine might need to copy 500GB of data 🤐
    – matigo
    Jan 20, 2022 at 4:25
  • @matigo: thanks for your help. the computer is a dell but I don't know the answers to the other questions. I always just plugged the hard drive into those holes in the front of the machine ? But I never did two simulataneously before. Also, don't know file system. Do you mean NTFS ?
    – mark leeds
    Jan 20, 2022 at 4:37
  • Note that I just did alt + left arrow key and alt + right arrow key and the pink screen with the time came back for a while and said : "press key to unlock". The mouse would work intermittently but I never got prompted for the password so that I could unlock and eventually it went back to black screen. Got my hopes up for about 5 minutes. Thanks.
    – mark leeds
    Jan 20, 2022 at 4:39
  • Search this site for slow copy. See things like askubuntu.com/questions/995946/… and askubuntu.com/questions/1113235/… Ensure your write drive is not using Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) -- honest vendors will say drive not suitable for backup (because of the slow copy). Most likely you system buffers fill up, and things drag to a crawl. Anytime your write is slower than the read, this will then fill up memory.
    – ubfan1
    Jan 20, 2022 at 4:41
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    The good thing about rsync is that you can stop it anytime, and restart it by using the same command. So stop the process and reissue the command, will the -v --progress flags this time. This will give you an idea what it is doing.
    – Jos
    Jan 20, 2022 at 7:43

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