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I have big problem with my server. It is not starting the OS. Now I am using Ubuntu by booting from the DVD to copy all data in the server. But, I cannot copy one file which is around 11 GB. That file is very important.

I believe I may be unable to copy this file because it is larger than 4.3 GB.

How can I copy this big file?

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  • Use an external harddrive
    – Tachyons
    Jun 28, 2012 at 9:31
  • 3
    what is file system of the disk your are copying to?
    – Web-E
    Jun 28, 2012 at 10:02
  • 1
    What is the error message? Why can't you copy this file? Why do you believe it has to do with the size of the file?
    – ohno
    Jun 28, 2012 at 16:18
  • Get yourself an external USB disk (for example a 2.5" disk, they only need one USB cable to connect, and 500G cheap as dirt). Connect it to your server, and reformat it as ext4. (Use gparted, or whatever you are used to) When you're done, mount the disk, and copy way you want. The issue, as Web-E correctly assumes, is that you're trying to copy to a FAT32 filesystem. That filesystem allows files of a maximum size of a bit more than 4GB. Other filesystems do not have such restrictions, hence I tell you to use ext4. (Below, someone recomments HTFS, but he most certainly means NTFS) Aug 17, 2016 at 21:12
  • Alternatively, you could try to see whether the 11GB compresses well enough using gzip to get it down to smaller than 4GB. Depending on the data in the file, this might work. Wouldn't count on it, but it's a possible workaround. Aug 17, 2016 at 21:13

3 Answers 3

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try with cpio :

cpio -dump destination < origin
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  • can you give me for example this type
    – Tonytruong
    Jun 28, 2012 at 9:51
  • cpio -dump /some/mount/point < you_big_file.ext
    – Arcadien
    Jun 28, 2012 at 9:53
  • ex : i have 2 volume with name new and old, now i want to copy file new/data/idocweb.nfs to old
    – Tonytruong
    Jun 28, 2012 at 10:04
  • your destination is then new/data/idocweb.nfs and the origin is old/data/idocweb.nfs.
    – Arcadien
    Jun 28, 2012 at 10:08
  • origin is new/data/idocweb.nfs destination is old. file idocweb.nfs is database form lotus note. it has 11Gb
    – Tonytruong
    Jun 28, 2012 at 10:12
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You might want to use the command rsync for this. Many backup systems are based on it.

rsync -av from to

Just exchange "from" with the name of the file and "to" with the directory where you want to copy the file to.

It is very usefull for incremental backup and have been ported to different OS:es. If you want to make a backup of a directory, you just use the directory instead of "from". For more information, you could try the online manual pages. Just use these commands

man rsync
man cpio

or even

man man

Good luck.

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  • 1
    man man O.o that's messing with my mind
    – jackweirdy
    Jun 28, 2012 at 16:10
  • i want to copy the file in volume OLD with folder IBM/data/idocweb.nfs to destination USB HDD. This file idocweb.nfs have 11Gb. What can i do?
    – Tonytruong
    Jun 29, 2012 at 2:48
  • someone help me
    – Tonytruong
    Jun 29, 2012 at 11:44
  • jackweirdy, you must have a man page for the man view command to. And no, there are no man page for men and women. :) Tonytruong, have you read the man page? Yes, you can copy large files with rsync, it's what it was written to do. So it should be no problem. Just do as we described cpio and rsync here. Use rsync -av and just add the path to the file idocweb.nfs and the directory where you find tha USB HDD (you might find it under /media/ directory). You have not given enough information to help you more. Like where the HDD is and where you find OLD (also under /media/?)
    – Anders
    Jun 29, 2012 at 17:30
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It has nothing to do with the command you use to copy the file.

You need to reformat the drive into HTFS. Then any way of copying would work.

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