Has this usb drive worked in the past? Yes
It isn't formatted as NTFS by chance? >edit< I can see this isn't the problem as you are creating the temp file. No
Either you have permission and ownership problems on the destination directory or the drive does not have enough space hold double the backup size (the temp backup and the final backup location) Size=147G, Used=41G, Available=105G
I see this is set 5 that you are backing up too. You did not answer the space question asked above.
Here's the log from my last successful date.
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DAILY BACKUP TO WORKSTATION REPORT
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Backup started at Wed Mar 3 02:00:06 2010 Backup of mysql databases has been done Mounting backup shared directory localhost/media/SEAGATE Backup temp directory /media/SEAGATE/tmp_dir/smeserv.wfschools.org is mounted and is writable Using set number 2 of 7 Attempt incremental backup number 6 of 7 Backup base file name is inc-006-201003030200 Making backup in temp directory Using a backup session timeout of : 28770 seconds
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4742 inode(s) saved
with 31 hard link(s) recorded
0 inode(s) changed at the moment of the backup
194737 inode(s) not saved (no inode/file change) 0 inode(s) failed to save (filesystem error)
253 inode(s) ignored (excluded by filters)
1147 inode(s) recorded as deleted from reference backup
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Total number of inode considered: 200879
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Moving backup files to target directory /media/SEAGATE/smeserv.wfschools.org/set2
Updating backup configuration data
Backup successfully terminated at : Wed Mar 3 02:47:22 2010