Aha! This is *not* a 'cp' or Nautilus bug, per se -- I think this is a problem with this USB hard drive. Now the question is, is it a particular idiosyncrasy with this external drive, or is it a fundamental limitation of USB technology? (If the latter, then Nautilus --and 'cp'?-- would be improved by refusing any attempts to transfer files >= 4GB to a USB device, perhaps suggesting that the file be split first.)
-- Nautilus copy to USB hard drive crashed https://launchpad.net/bugs/70535 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs