From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jun 10 22:24:00 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 56604106566C for ; Sun, 10 Jun 2012 22:24:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from outgoing.tristatelogic.com (segfault.tristatelogic.com [69.62.255.118]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 347E68FC0C for ; Sun, 10 Jun 2012 22:24:00 +0000 (UTC) Received: from segfault-nmh-helo.tristatelogic.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by segfault.tristatelogic.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id F0A335081F; Sun, 10 Jun 2012 15:23:59 -0700 (PDT) To: Warren Block In-Reply-To: Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 15:23:59 -0700 Message-ID: <48774.1339367039@tristatelogic.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Making a bootable backup (hard)disk... how? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 22:24:00 -0000 Warren? Just a couple more quick questions. You recommend: >> dump -C16 -b64 -0uanL -h0 -f - /usr | (cd /mnt && restore -ruf -) I'm real curious about you suggestions for the -C and -b values. I have what amounts to a personal workstation. Yea, OK, it is running mail, web, and FTP servers also, but fundementailly, it is not that busy most of the time. And it's got 4GB of main installed. On average, I suspect that I ain't even using half of that. Given all that, why shouldn't I specify (e.g.): -C512 -b1024 ? Wouldn't that all make the dump go faster? Remember, I'm just gonna do like in your examples and pipe the output of dump to restore, so whereas if I was going to tape (or even to a .dump disk file), -b1024 would be rather wasteful, in my case all I am wasting is a bit of kernel time (for a bit more stuff being passed through the pipe). Regards, rfg