Rsync is great for backuping data. However, it requires some advanced options to get a smooth backup from an ext3 filesystem to a vfat/fat16/fat32 one (e.g. a USB stick):
‘’rsync -a –no-o –no-p –no-g –safe-links –modify-window 1 –stats /home/source/ /media/sda1/dest/’’
’‘–no-o’’ because vfat does not support owners ’‘–no-g’’ because vfat does not support groups ’‘–no-p’’ because vfat does not support permissions ’‘–modify-window 1’’ because fat “represents times with a 2-second resolution” (rsync manual) ’‘–safe-links’’ because vfat does not support symbolic links
Also, note that vfat does not support filenames containing ‘%’ or ‘:’. To check where they are and whether they are not important: ’‘$ find . -name “%” -or -name ":’’
see also: [[backup from ext3 to vfat with qcow2 images]]