Arch Linux

doubleslash

Member

Registered: 2011-08-16

Posts: 80

How to image hard drive

Does anyone know a tool that I can use to make a live image of my hard drive? I went through a lot of work putting numerous packages on top of my ArchLinux, and would like not to have to do the same next time. It should work like a recovery cd on windows. Thanks

Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: How to image hard drive

dd

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doubleslash

Member

Registered: 2011-08-16

Posts: 80

Re: How to image hard drive

thanks

Last edited by doubleslash (2011-08-16 15:11:48)

siriusb

Member

From: Hungary

Registered: 2010-01-01

Posts: 422

Re: How to image hard drive

Personally I prefer rsync. Since linux is not windows you can simple copy system files back and forth without any hassle. However you can choose clonezilla for backup, too.

SidK

Member

Registered: 2011-03-03

Posts: 116

Re: How to image hard drive

Clonezilla is neat, and since it's filesystem aware it's significantly faster than dd when your drives are mostly empty. I still however use dd as it's just so much simpler. I boot up into any live environment and just:

dd if=/dev/sda | ssh backupserver -C "dd of=/path/2011_8_16-sda.drive"

Using dd on the entire drive like this it includes partition layouts and the MBR, useful when you have to deploy to a fresh disc (of the same size).
You could also do:

dd if=/dev/sda1 | ssh backupserver -C "dd of=/path/2011_8_16-sda1.partition"

Then you have the advantage that you can mount the partition as a block device, making it easier to restore a subset of the backup. You can extract partitions from the full drive image, but that takes a little work.

If I had multiple TB drives I'd probably use clonezilla.

Last edited by SidK (2011-08-16 15:37:53)