rsync backup to external hard disk exFat fails

Question

I tried to back up data from my macbook to an external hard drive - formatted with exFat (bacause of the Windows and Linux/Mac compatibility).

With Automator I will create a little Program, to backup my data easily. It works fine on the local drive and from local drive to an SD-Card. But it do not work from local drive to an external hard drive. What's wrong?

SOURCE=/Users/username/Pictures/test
TARGET=/Volumes/Backup/
LOG=~/Documents/AutomatorLogs/BackupSync.log

rsync -aze "ssh" --delete --exclude=".*" "$SOURCE" "$TARGET" > "$LOG"

I got this Error:

rsync: recv_generator: mkdir "/Volumes/Backup/test" failed: Permission denied (13)

Answer 1

I know this is older but I just ran into this and I wanted to make sure this info was included. I know the OP is a little different, but I'm using a macbook and ran into the error I describe so I don't know how even with changing the disk name it worked.

rsync can't use -a when the target is an exfat drive. It will make the directories and seem to be backing up but no files are actually created. You need to use:

rsync -rltDv [SRC] [DESTINATION]

where:
    -v, --verbose               increase verbosity
    -r, --recursive             recurse into directories
    -l, --links                 copy symlinks as symlinks
        --devices               preserve device files (super-user only)
        --specials              preserve special files
    -D                          same as --devices --specials
    -t, --times                 preserve times

The reason is because rsync doesn't handle permissions on exfat. You will see an rsync error (in syslog or if you control-c out):

chgrp [file] failed: Function not implemented (38)

Answer 2

It looks like the user that you're running the command as doesn't have permission to make a new directory in the /Volumes/Backup/ directory.

To solve this, you will probably need to change the permissions on that directory so that your script will be able to write to it and create the new directory it uses to make the backup.

Here are some links about permissions:

http://linuxcommand.org/lts0070.php

http://www.perlfect.com/articles/chmod.shtml