Can I eliminate diagnostic messages from cp

[Brian Inglis]

lostbits <aschwarz1309 <at> att.net> writes:
> I use cp as my backup tool from disk to USB. There are maybe 40,000 
> files involved and each one has a message of
> "cp: preserving permissions for <file>’: Not supported". These messages 
> slow down the backup and obscure meaningful faults. Is there any option 
> for removing the messages?
> My command line is: cp <directory> /<usb>

cp --preserve=all is documented as suppressing operation not supported
messages, and cp -a (archive) is documented as suppressing messages about
inability to preserve information which can not be stored on the target
filesystem.

Alternatively, instead of using the default USB DOS/VFAT format, you could
format the USB drives as NTFS, which would allow cp to preserve the
ownership and ACLs on the files.