-a implies that rights that may not translate correctly to NTFS are to be copied and matched. I use only -rltD. -a implies -rlptgoD.
Note: I use rsync from linux with EXT4, and I don't know how HFS compares to NTFS.
Here is a complete script I use to backup some of my folders to removable USB-disc. This works fine in Ubuntu 10.4
#!/bin/bash
# Rotated backup from EXT4 to removable NTFS-disc using rsync.
# Four generations are saved and automatically purged each run.
# Generations: current, backups/old, backups/older, backups/oldest.
# This script is stored on and run from the root of the removable disc
# where the backups are stored. Destination paths in the rsync commands
# are relative to current working directory below.
# Purge oldest backup
rm -rf backups/oldest
# Prepare recieving folder.
mkdir inprogress
# Grab new contents. Use rsync to create hard links to files already backed up on media.
# Note: --link-dest is set relative to dest.
# Note: Since we copy from EXT4 to NTFS we can't use -a. Rights are different in NTFS.
# If we tried then rsync would copy every file, since rights don't match.
# I use -rltD instead of -a. Care must be taken when restoring files!
echo "Backup of Musik is updated with changes since last backup"
rsync -rltD --verbose --modify-window=1 --delete \
--link-dest=../../current/Musik \
/home/anders/Musik/ \
inprogress/Musik
echo "Backup of tv is updated with changes since last backup"
rsync -rltD --verbose --modify-window=1 --delete \
--link-dest=../../current/tv \
/home/anders/Video/tv/ \
inprogress/tv
echo "Backup of Calibre Library is updated with changes since last backup"
rsync -rltD --verbose --modify-window=1 --delete \
--link-dest="../../current/Calibre Library" \
"/home/anders/Calibre Library/" \
"inprogress/Calibre Library"
# Rotate the backups
# mkdir backups (only needed first run)
mv backups/older backups/oldest
mv backups/old backups/older
mv current backups/old
mv inprogress current
echo Done!
Sample output from a run:
anders@anders-desktop:/media/Samsung S2$ ./refresh.sh
Backup of Musik is updated with changes since last backup
sending incremental file list
./
Artists/
Various Artists/
sent 1787165 bytes received 3256 bytes 102309.77 bytes/sec
total size is 230838013393 speedup is 128929.46
Backup of tv is updated with changes since last backup
sending incremental file list
./
sent 7558 bytes received 35 bytes 5062.00 bytes/sec
total size is 64808873338 speedup is 8535344.84
Backup of Calibre Library is updated with changes since last backup
sending incremental file list
./
sent 227427 bytes received 1883 bytes 91724.00 bytes/sec
total size is 825094709 speedup is 3598.16
Done!
To answer your question: no, there is no utility.*
I'd stick with NTFS. It's been around longer than exFAT, it is stable, and no one is forcing you to use the features like compression, security and encryption. It's also supported on a lot more platforms than exFAT, including Windows itself (notwithstanding the patches you can install).
exFAT is designed primarily for removable drives like USB thumb drives, so I'd use it for that, but not for a hard drive.
**(As @Moab points out in the comments, there are ways to do this using two separate conversions, from NTFS to FAT32, and then FAT32 to exFAT, but you'd be held ransom to FAT32's limitations during the conversion, which includes a maximum of 4GB on file sizes.)*
Best Answer
Paragon offers a small freeware utility called NTFS-HFS Converter that will convert whole volumes in both directions (but here is no FAT32 capability). The process is entirely automatic, only giving you a chance to create a simple backup copy before the procedure.
All three versions (including free) of Paragon Partition Manager will also do this, with the addition of being able to convert between FAT32 and NTFS.