The Days of Living Dangerously is Over, Almost

I hate to manage files and storage.  I've never really done any backup or such.  Not systematically anyway.  And I hate any virus or malware scanning programs except when I really need them.  I've tried Simple Backup but I kind of messed it up or it's messed up like with some of my help.  I got it to work, but it's just too slow for my taste--I know even my PC is running on museum grade hardware.

My pictures have been growing and growing, though for the most part they are mostly from a 6MP camera and I don't take that many pictures.  I think I have less than 14,000 pictures amount about 47GB of garbage.  In terms of size I don't think it's big.  But still I dread to manage any storage.

Finally in this rainy day when the US Open is suspended, most likely postponed, I just cobbled together a very simple script to do my "backup."  It's so simple that I wonder why I didn't bother to do it in the first place.  Performance wise, it's not bad, I guess if I have better hardware it could even be better.

Here is the single line that does the job.

cp -aRvu /home/genius/Photos/ /media/externaldrive/

It's so simple that I am embarrassed to even mention it here.  But I got no shame anyway, and it's good to share and as some sort of note for myself.  It takes less than an hour to copy my 14,000 pictures or 47GB to the FireWire 400 external 7200rpm harddrive.  And the -u option is pretty neat.  (Note:-if you know some nifty options, please do share with me.  Just don't tell me to rm -R at / as root)

the options
a - archive or attributes I guess, to keep the attributes of the source files
R - recursive, copy the directories and files
v - verbatim, to show the files are being copied
u - update, if the destination has the same files, it won't waste time copying them

On another note, just in case your external harddrive all of a sudden stopped working, chances are it has some huge huge files under the hidden trash folder.  To delete them, type sudo nautilus in Terminal, then view Show hidden files.  Delete the Trash folder to reclaim your precious space.  That's all.

Again, because I really don't know what I am doing, if by following the above instructions or guides you mess up your system just a little or big time beyond repair, hey you have been warned and I can't be held responsible for that.