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Dante
Asked: 2017-03-22 16:21:32 +0800 CST

Copy files from NTFS to EXT4

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Is there any difference between cp -r /source /destination and cp -a /source /destination when I am copying from NTFS to EXT4?

filesystem

2 Answers

  1. cp -a attempts to make copies as close as possible to the source, including metadata and tree information.

    cp -r recursively copies files and keeps the contents but yields to the user doing the copy for modification times, permissions, and user.

    So essentially, just use cp -a as it does everything cp -r does and more.

    Here is some further reading from the man page

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  2. It makes a difference when it comes to links which are located in the source directory.cp -a will copy the link as a link. cp -r will follow the link, so if the link points to another directory it will copy the contents of the linked directory as well, this can make a huge different in necessary disk space when the linked directory holds a lot of data.

    cp -a will also preserve file permissions, ownership and timestamps which cp -r doesn't. File permissions will be different, even if you copy from an NTFS-formatted partition.

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