"Peter Davoust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Sun, 07 Oct 2007 00:49:11 -0400:
> This may be a little noobish, and it may have been said, but can't you > just install the new drive, partition it identically to the original > drive and then... > > dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdb1 > dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/dev/hdb2 > > so on and so forth until you've got everything copied? Or event just > > dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb > > Wouldn't that work? It should, you're right. However, that's a direct image straight across, fragmented files, even filesystem corruption if it exists on the source, and it's nice to take the opportunity to copy file-by file so everything gets defragmented and all the file nodes get organized, if possible, particularly since few Linux filesystems /have/ a defrag. Few need it very badly as long as a decent amount of free-space is kept on each filesystem (50% is great, 25% minimum for best operation, 10% and performance /does/ start to suffer), but it's still nice to organize it, getting files all in one piece and directories all located together, while one can. Also, new drives are generally larger and it's nice to be able to take the opportunity to reorganize the partitions. All those are reasons I like my simple partition/mkfs/copy-the-files-over method, but some folks don't seem to like that idea for whatever reason. <shrug> -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
