How do I backup and restore 500GB of mac files to windows server? Hidden files not working.

I don't think I would be able to restore the data within 8 hours if I try to zip and unzip that  large amount of data.

See this link- http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-copy-files-between-macs-and-pcs/

.DS_Store is completely disposable. Some admins set up a cron job to delete all the .DS_Store files from their servers every day. You're *probably* safe in ignoring the dot-files, but it all depends on what type of filesystem you're using, whether or not the Mac applications are expecting the files to have resource forks, what version of Mac OS X you're running, and whether or not you've sacrificed enough chickens this week.

If you want to make absolutely certain that you're getting a good backup of the Mac files, your *best* bet is probably to back them up via Time Machine on a client running Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/shareextdrive105.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20578
et al

Setup a FAT partition to copy the files from Mac to Windows.  Create a batch file and schedule it for your backups.

Thanks for the reply but this does not apply.  I am moving files from a windows 2003 file server to a windows 2008 file server both of which are using NTFS.  My issue is that the data on the source file server is 500GB of mac files so there are lots of hidden files and files with strange naming conventions.  The data is all on NTFS partitions I just can't find a good way to transfer it quickly to the replacement file server without loosing all of the hidden files that have periods in front of them.

I was hoping to utilize ntbackup, or robocopy, or richcopy but none of these are working well.

jlg89:

The data is currently stored on a windows 2003 server using NTFS.  The Macs are all running OS X and access the file share on the windows server.  I just want to move the data to a new windows file share.  I am just concerned about all of these weird hidden files that start with a period.

We backup the data using backup exec. Thanks for the tip on the DS_store files.  Can you explain what the other files are(that duplicate file names of other files but start with a period . )?  Are they important?

COPY THE FILES USING A MACINTOSH AS A 'MULE' THEN YOU CAN BE SURE THE MACINTOSH RESOURCE FORKS WILL BE COPIED WHEN YOU COPY ALL THE FILES.

MOUNT BOTH FILESYSTEMS ON A MACINTOSH (IDEALLY ON THE SAME NETWORK SWITCH AS BOTH THE SERVERS IF YOU CAN; I FIND A MACBOOK LAPTOP PLUGGED INTO THE DATA CENTRE SWITCH WORKS A TREAT).

THEN COPY THE FILES FROM HERE.

The "._" files that match other filenames are resource forks (vs. the data forks). The Mac has traditionally used resource forks to store information about the file, such as what application created it (which is how, for example, Macs can "know" a file is a Word document even if it doesn't have ".doc" extension). Leaving those behind won't cause problems for some applications (MS Office doesn't care, for example), but it will cause problems for others. It's very application dependent. You can ask the developer of whatever software the Mac folks are using whether or not missing resource forks will be an issue, but I'd still run a test restore and see if the Mac users can open and use the restored files, will all the different apps they use.