No drawback that I know of... cp -ax (some of the flags listed earlier are probably
redundant if you have a and x) is a well known method to clone/copy stuff. GNUs
cp (which is what's on the empeg) handles oddball stuff (links, pipes, devices etc)
better than some other cp:s included in other Unices though.

Yes, I think it would be good if the FAQ would be updated to recommend this
approach instead - Tony?

Edit:
Hmmmm... no redundancy in those switches after all:

-f, --force
remove existing destinations, never prompt
-u, --update
copy only when the SOURCE file is newer than the
destination file or when the destination file is
missing

these look somewhat contradictory. Not a problem if you have a blank destination though...

-v, --verbose
explain what is being done
-x, --one-file-system
stay on this file system

and -a equals -dpR :
-d, --no-dereference
preserve links
-p, --preserve
preserve file attributes if possible
-R, --recursive
copy directories recursively







/Michael