Large-Scale Data Copies on TrueNAS SCALE: tmux, rsync, and NTFS USB Drives

Everybody has that one friend who comes along, dropping his USB HardDrive and want to have some stuff copied from your NAS. Here is a quick tip on how to copy large amount of data.

TrueNAS SCALE is based on Debian, NTFS support comes from the Linux kernel and ntfs-3g, so we can start straight out of the box.

Mount the USB Drive

Bash

truenas[~]$ dmesg -w
[6759341.448376] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Intenso  External USB 3.0 1405 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[6759341.451605] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[6759341.468713] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] 1953506646 4096-byte logical blocks: (8.00 TB/7.28 TiB)
[6759341.468961] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[6759341.468976] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 53 00 00 08
[6759341.469373] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[6759341.519100] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Preferred minimum I/O size 4096 bytes
[6759341.519116] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Optimal transfer size 33550336 bytes
[6759341.555046]  sdc: sdc1
[6759341.555191] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk

truenas[~]$ lsblk -f /dev/sdc
NAME   FSTYPE FSVER LABEL  UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sdc
└─sdc1 ntfs         BACKUP 4806286D06285E66


truenas_admin@truenas[~]$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/usb_ntfs

truenas_admin@truenas[~]$ sudo mount -t ntfs3 -o rw,uid=0,gid=0,umask=022 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb_ntfs

truenas_admin@truenas[~]$ ll /mnt/usb_ntfs
total 13
drwxrwxrwx 1 root 4096 Feb 19 16:33  ./
drwxr-xr-x 9 root    9 Feb 19 18:26  ../
drwxr-xr-x 1 root    0 Feb 19 16:33 'System Volume Information'/

truenas[~]$ dmesg -w
[6759341.448376] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Intenso  External USB 3.0 1405 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[6759341.451605] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[6759341.468713] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] 1953506646 4096-byte logical blocks: (8.00 TB/7.28 TiB)
[6759341.468961] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[6759341.468976] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 53 00 00 08
[6759341.469373] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[6759341.519100] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Preferred minimum I/O size 4096 bytes
[6759341.519116] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Optimal transfer size 33550336 bytes
[6759341.555046]  sdc: sdc1
[6759341.555191] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk

truenas[~]$ lsblk -f /dev/sdc
NAME   FSTYPE FSVER LABEL  UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sdc
└─sdc1 ntfs         BACKUP 4806286D06285E66


truenas_admin@truenas[~]$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/usb_ntfs

truenas_admin@truenas[~]$ sudo mount -t ntfs3 -o rw,uid=0,gid=0,umask=022 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb_ntfs

truenas_admin@truenas[~]$ ll /mnt/usb_ntfs
total 13
drwxrwxrwx 1 root 4096 Feb 19 16:33  ./
drwxr-xr-x 9 root    9 Feb 19 18:26  ../
drwxr-xr-x 1 root    0 Feb 19 16:33 'System Volume Information'/

Create a Terminal Session for the copy job and run rsync to start the copy

Screen is not installed on TrueNas, instead use tmux it keeps the job running after you disconnect, and you can reattach to monitor.

1) Start a persistent session

tmux new -s copyusb

2) Run your rsync inside tmux

Example (with a log file so you can review progress later):

sudo rsync -rltDv --info=progress2 \
  --no-perms --no-owner --no-group --no-acls --no-xattrs \
  --exclude='System Volume Information/' --exclude='$RECYCLE.BIN/' \
  "/mnt/WD16TB/MyData/" "/mnt/usb_ntfs/"\
  |& tee -a /home/truenas_admin/rsync_usb_copy.log

3) Detach (leave it running) and close SSH

Press:

Ctrl-b then d

Now you can close the terminal; the copy continues.

4) Reconnect later and monitor

SSH back in and:

tmux attach -t copyusb

To see existing sessions:

tmux ls

To exit tmux when it’s done (ends session):

exit

Monitoring without attaching (quick checks)

Progress log:

tail -f /home/truenas_admin/rsync_usb_copy.log

See if rsync is still running:

ps aux | grep [r]sync