[SOLVED] what am i doing wrong

[przxqgl]

i've got a 7.2GB tgz file that i created of my /home directory. it currently lives on /media/backup. i don't want to use /media/backup to restore the file, once i've installed on my new machine, so i figured i'd move the 7.2GB file on to a 16GB USB drive. i gave it the following command, and got the following response, after about 2.5 hours and 4.3GB of copying:

salamandir@Gingko:/media/backup$ cp 2015-09-27-Gingko.tgz /media/TELPONIC/.
cp: error writing ‘/media/TELPONIC/./2015-09-27-Gingko.tgz’: File too large
cp: failed to extend ‘/media/TELPONIC/./2015-09-27-Gingko.tgz’: File too large

file too large? this is a 16GB thumb drive, and the backup is only 7.2GB... it shouldn't be too large...

still, i've had bad thumb drives, so i try an 8GB drive... 2.5 hours and 4.3GB of copying later, i get the following message:

salamandir@Gingko:/media/backup$ cp 2015-09-27-Gingko.tgz /media/DWEEZIL/.
cp: error writing ‘/media/DWEEZIL/./2015-09-27-Gingko.tgz’: File too large
cp: failed to extend ‘/media/DWEEZIL/./2015-09-27-Gingko.tgz’: File too large

8/

what am i doing wrong?

[Feathers McGraw]

There's a 4GB limit on file size with FAT partitions. Try formatting the drive to EXT4.

[przxqgl]

d'oh!! 8/

i knew it was something stupid simple... thanks. 8)

the only thing is, now that it's formatted EXT4, instead of being called /media/TELPONIC it's called /media/ce23bc3d-4059-43cc-9e27-d3f832081479 which is a bit more difficult to remember...

but it copies about twice as fast... i knew there was a reason i liked kubuntu... 8)

[Feathers McGraw]

Devices usually mount by label if there is one, and only use the UID if there isn't. If you edit the drive in a partition manager to add a label, you might find it starts mounting the way you're used to.

However, I have a feeling that known drives might be cached (i.e. now it has mounted there once it will always be mounted in the same place). Try it and see!

[oshunluvr]

You can add a label without reformatting too:

sudo tune2fs -L <LABEL> /dev/sd<whatever>

You can verify (always a good idea) the correct device name by running dmesg or lsblk before you insert the USB stick, then run it again after and look for the newly listed info. That will show the device ID and list partitions for you.