What's the best way to copy a large directory tree (around 3TB in total) with a combination of large and small files? The files currently reside on my NAS which is on my LAN (connected via gigabit ethernet) and are mounted on my system as a NFS share. I would like to copy all files/directories to an external hard disk connected via USB. I care about speed, but I also care about reliability, making sure that every file is copied, that all metadata is preserved and that errors are handled gracefully. I've done some research and currently, I am thinking of using tar or rsync, or a combination of the two. Something like: tar --ignore-failed-read -C $SRC -cpf - . | tar --ignore-failed-read -C $DEST -xpvf - to copy everything initially, and then rsync -ahSD --ignore-errors --force --delete --stats $SRC/ $DIR/ To check everything with rsync. What do you guys think about this? Am I missing something? Are there better tools for this? Or other useful options for tar and rsync that I am missing? Cheers -- Aryan