"Date Created" missing on files transferred from an ext3 file system to an NTFS file system

[Paul Slootman]

On Fri 25 Apr 2008, Kor Kiley wrote:

> The rsync command I'm using is:
>
> rsync -auz --remove-source-files /m2/archives /nfs-destination
>
> The problem I'm having is that ~50% of the files that are moved are  
> missing a creation date.  The main problem with this is that the backup  

There is no such thing as a "creation date" in unix/linux.
Commonly people misinterpret the "ctime" field as having something to do
with "creation", but actually the C stands for "inode change".
Hence the ctime will be updated if you change the owner of a file, or
make a hard link to the file; anything that changes the information in
the inode.

Of course, I don't know what your combination of NFS over an NTFS disk
does with such "unix" concepts...


When data is copied with rsync, the ctime field should contain the current
timestamp. Not having any ctime would be surprising. It would help if
you explained exactly why you think the "creation date" is missing, what
tools have you used to determine this and what exactly do they show?

> software always thinks that they are new versions and always backs them  
> up during an incremental backup.  I also haven't found a good way of  

"Backup software" should look at the modification time, not at the
"creation date" or ctime. Is this "backup software" something different
than rsync?


Paul Slootman