cloning a FreeBSD HDD

Patrick Tracanelli eksffa at freebsdbrasil.com.br
Thu Mar 30 13:20:26 UTC 2006


John-Mark Gurney wrote:
> Patrick Tracanelli wrote this message on Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 10:14 -0300:
> 
>>Daniel O'Connor wrote:
>>
>>>On Wednesday 29 March 2006 14:34, M. Warner Losh wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>dump + restore is slow but reliabe.
>>>
>>>
>>>Faster than dd for disks that aren't full :)
>>>
>>>It also gives you a defrag as well as allowing you to change FS options.
>>
>>Yes, pretty much faster for non-full disks, even compared to paralell 
>>dd(1). And we always have the "-L" option to snapshot and dump(1) from 
>>live file systems, what makes it an interesting and completly viable 
>>choice to clone the disks in multiuser mode (no need to go single user).
>>
>>It is my choice to copy a disk into one other. It is even possible to 
>>copy a disk to a slower one (again, if the source is not full and if the 
>>dst disk have enough space to store all data currently in use in the 
>>source disk), and better (customizable new partitions) results when 
>>copying to a larger second disk, when compared to dd(1).
> 
> 
> Though if you are using extended attributes, the dump/restore pair won't
> transfer them...  :(
> 

You are right, I am afraid it is true for ACLs and other MAC modules 
too. Sadly dump does not know about 'em (yet?). So it is really 
something to consider when backin' up full disks with the dump|restore 
pair, if the person use more sophisticated FS attributes.

-- 
Patrick Tracanelli

FreeBSD Brasil LTDA.
(31) 3281-9633 / 3281-3547
316601 at sip.freebsdbrasil.com.br
http://www.freebsdbrasil.com.br
"Long live Hanin Elias, Kim Deal!"



More information about the freebsd-hackers mailing list