Re: copying hard drives
On Fri, 10 Jun 2011, David Banning wrote: I am interested in copying hard drives and would like some feedback. 1. I would like a way to take peoples windows -or- unix systems and store each on portable hard drive as a single file - so that in the end I have a large, say 2TB drive with a number of peoples operating system backed up - that can later be restored. I second using Clonezilla. It doesn't make a single file, but splits things into 2G files that aren't as unwieldy as larger files. Keep a copy of the Clonezilla CD or image with the backup. 2. I'd like a simple way to copy - my FreeBSD system to another drive - a clone so to speak - which I know dd can do - but I wonder if there is a way to do this so that clone drive can be smaller that the original. My thinking here is that I need to experiment with changes but can't do it on a live system - hence the copy booted from a separate machine. dd is a brute force copy method that has certain applications. Copying a FreeBSD disk is better done with dump and restore. I have some notes on all three of these methods in Backup Options For FreeBSD: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/backup.html ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
copying hard drives
I am interested in copying hard drives and would like some feedback. 1. I would like a way to take peoples windows -or- unix systems and store each on portable hard drive as a single file - so that in the end I have a large, say 2TB drive with a number of peoples operating system backed up - that can later be restored. One concern I have is that the file saved is under a certain generic standard - I don't want to be in a situation down the road where I need to restore, but the required software to restore is defunct. It would be nice to have the operating system on a stick - so I could boot into the program from a clients computer, connect a large drive, and backup their entire drive. 2. I'd like a simple way to copy - my FreeBSD system to another drive - a clone so to speak - which I know dd can do - but I wonder if there is a way to do this so that clone drive can be smaller that the original. My thinking here is that I need to experiment with changes but can't do it on a live system - hence the copy booted from a separate machine. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: copying hard drives
From: David Banning david+dated+1308165107.fdb...@skytracker.ca To: questi...@freebsd.org Sent: Fri, June 10, 2011 3:11:46 PM Subject: copying hard drives I am interested in copying hard drives and would like some feedback. 1. I would like a way to take peoples windows -or- unix systems and store each on portable hard drive as a single file - so that in the end I have a large, say 2TB drive with a number of peoples operating system backed up - that can later be restored. One concern I have is that the file saved is under a certain generic standard - I don't want to be in a situation down the road where I need to restore, but the required software to restore is defunct. It would be nice to have the operating system on a stick - so I could boot into the program from a clients computer, connect a large drive, and backup their entire drive. 2. I'd like a simple way to copy - my FreeBSD system to another drive - a clone so to speak - which I know dd can do - but I wonder if there is a way to do this so that clone drive can be smaller that the original. My thinking here is that I need to experiment with changes but can't do it on a live system - hence the copy booted from a separate machine. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org Look into G4U...Ghost for Unix. It's a free and based on NetBSD. It will clone a drive, make images of drives, etc...and you can't beat the price. I've used it successfully many times. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: copying hard drives
On 10/06/2011 21:11, David Banning wrote: I am interested in copying hard drives and would like some feedback. 1. I would like a way to take peoples windows -or- unix systems and store each on portable hard drive as a single file - so that in the end I have a large, say 2TB drive with a number of peoples operating system backed up - that can later be restored. One concern I have is that the file saved is under a certain generic standard - I don't want to be in a situation down the road where I need to restore, but the required software to restore is defunct. It would be nice to have the operating system on a stick - so I could boot into the program from a clients computer, connect a large drive, and backup their entire drive. 2. I'd like a simple way to copy - my FreeBSD system to another drive - a clone so to speak - which I know dd can do - but I wonder if there is a way to do this so that clone drive can be smaller that the original. My thinking here is that I need to experiment with changes but can't do it on a live system - hence the copy booted from a separate machine. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org Hi, Though it's not a FreeBSD related question, I would suggest clonezilla http://www.clonezilla.org/ as a good tool to accomplish your goals. I think it's also scriptable. Regards, -- Andrei Brezan emailandrei693 [at] gmail.com ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: copying hard drives
On Fri, 10 Jun 2011, David Banning wrote: 2. I'd like a simple way to copy - my FreeBSD system to another drive - a clone so to speak - which I know dd can do - Won't reliably leave you with an operable system. Use dump and restore -- Lars Eighner http://www.larseighner.com/index.html 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: copying hard drives
I would like a way to take peoples windows -or- unix systems and store each on portable hard drive as a single file - so that in the end I have a large, say 2TB drive with a number of peoples operating system backed up - that can later be restored. Use dd to make a sector-for-sector level copy into a file. It will work regardless of the operating system you're copying. However, be aware that some operating systems do not have a hardware abstraction layer. As such their kernels are optumised to run on the hardware they were installed on. They can can only be restored to the exact same hardware. This is usually the case with WindowsXP. (Though you can still mount and extract data from the dd generated image.) dd if=/dev/ad6 of=foo.bin bs=1m It would be nice to have the operating system on a stick - so I could boot into the program from a clients computer, connect a large drive, and backup their entire drive. You can do this with any 'live' operating system. Most UNIX like systems offer a comparable 'dd' command. For example, you could boot to an Ubuntu CD, or even Freesbie, if that's still around. which I know dd can do - but I wonder if there is a way to do this so that clone drive can be smaller that the original. For this on FreeBSD, use dump(8) and restore(8) commands. Of course, they will only be suitable for FreeBSD, as they are file system (UFS) dependent. -Modulok- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
