From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 25 15:49:53 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 24B00106564A for ; Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:49:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rick@kiwi-computer.com) Received: from hamlet.setfilepointer.com (hamlet.SetFilePointer.com [63.224.10.2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9EB498FC0C for ; Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:49:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rick@kiwi-computer.com) Received: (qmail 4481 invoked from network); 25 Jun 2009 10:49:51 -0500 Received: from keira.kiwi-computer.com (HELO kiwi-computer.com) (63.224.10.3) by hamlet.setfilepointer.com with SMTP; 25 Jun 2009 10:49:51 -0500 Received: (qmail 83622 invoked by uid 2001); 25 Jun 2009 15:49:50 -0000 Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:49:50 -0500 From: "Rick C. Petty" To: krad Message-ID: <20090625154950.GA83146@keira.kiwi-computer.com> References: <20090623032742.M54551@ezo.net> <2C153FCDAC3B43BDADDD1B28CED80036@uk.tiscali.intl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <2C153FCDAC3B43BDADDD1B28CED80036@uk.tiscali.intl> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: dd copy of FreeBSD-7.2 won't boot X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: rick-freebsd2008@kiwi-computer.com List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:49:53 -0000 On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 11:11:21PM +0100, krad wrote: > Personally id stay away from dd. Create the partitions and file systems > manually, and install the boot loader, then rsync the data across. It will > be a lot faster in most cases, as unlike dd you wont be copying unused > space. Something like this should do the job I wouldn't say rsync is faster than dd, unless you have a lot of empty space or are migrating across a network. The nice thing about rsync is it if you restart it, it picks up where it left off so to speak. With dd you have to add two arguments. > Rsync -aPH --exclude=/mnt/** / /mnt ^ I often use: rsync -avHSPx / /mnt The "x" means don't cross file system boundaries, which is generally what you want when migrating file systems. > I'm assuming you weren't migrating due to a bad disk Actually using rsync to migrate a bad disk is preferrable over dd (presuming you have no backup), since rsync will skip and warn you aboud bad files, but "dd conv=noerror" could leave you in a bad situation if it skips over critical metadata blocks. I always try rsync first, with the source filesystem mounted read-only, and if that fails I'll fall back to dd. Actually if you have the space and it was a bad disk, I'd probably dd to a new disk or file, then mount that disk or file read-only, and then use rsync. -- Rick C. Petty