From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Thu Sep 1 22:48:42 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 80091BCCFE0 for ; Thu, 1 Sep 2016 22:48:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from brandon.wandersee@gmail.com) Received: from mail-it0-f43.google.com (mail-it0-f43.google.com [209.85.214.43]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 56A0F96 for ; Thu, 1 Sep 2016 22:48:41 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from brandon.wandersee@gmail.com) Received: by mail-it0-f43.google.com with SMTP id c198so7738168ith.1 for ; Thu, 01 Sep 2016 15:48:41 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:references:user-agent:from:to:cc:subject :in-reply-to:date:message-id:mime-version; bh=PZthqeJfxFJzztXFOCR/9NE5YWZQRjVnayguDkDeDA0=; b=kh2vgkqrOjGfb156fFIa2Guk3vvyOjFcoB5BcjjE/bN42hdiBTzy/s31YtZkv0AwnN EzI+oWaf8DpoPyAqYXR3fK4N6VIF3US1ZZodg1PKfa4lnCPquuVQPnP0WXhcRHlH49yv Xm3dYfgMCF0YV4cdgrpUx/0sdKlJKH99RBVHjAy6sIPlblZ/4DuqcyzJdzTaKLuGb2Uc BKMqZfv6kwSm3vKAesi6OVnirLjymZA+eM5xH+SWKkqhHvuBP29a69ova2Bhj/5fkFHQ 8bf5y+vxuhnfph+CVfW1iWpuvTwKqLXloXFVbbZAUM4BU51+9MIa/owqz37K+TmYPU5M EhrQ== X-Gm-Message-State: AE9vXwMb20mBUwVYoayztcVnR0AGF5VDtmcPIA/a+mSuoHLLNjPgs7yYNox1OiuaNG31+A== X-Received: by 10.36.77.85 with SMTP id l82mr182859itb.77.1472770115002; Thu, 01 Sep 2016 15:48:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from WorkBox.Home.gmail.com (174-30-240-135.mpls.qwest.net. [174.30.240.135]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id 192sm433577itk.17.2016.09.01.15.48.33 (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 bits=256/256); Thu, 01 Sep 2016 15:48:33 -0700 (PDT) References: <20160831184925.GA80454@neutralgood.org> <2338862.z0bWHT8yXQ@curlew.lan> User-agent: mu4e 0.9.16; emacs 24.5.1 From: Brandon J. Wandersee To: Mike Clarke Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, "Christoph P.U. Kukulies" , "Kevin P. Neal" Subject: Re: dd blocksize when copying to SSD disk In-reply-to: <2338862.z0bWHT8yXQ@curlew.lan> Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2016 17:48:34 -0500 Message-ID: <8637lj2q4d.fsf@WorkBox.Home> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.22 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2016 22:48:42 -0000 Mike Clarke writes: > On Wednesday 31 Aug 2016 14:49:25 Kevin P. Neal wrote: >> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 06:35:28PM +0200, Christoph P.U. Kukulies wrote: >> > I'm about to copy an existing Windows 7 system to an SSD. Source drive >> > is a hard disk of 256 GB, destination drive a 500 GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO. >> > >> > >> > >> > Given the fact that unnecessary write operations to SSDs should be >> > avoided I'm thinking about the best strategy to use dd to write to the >> > SSD. >> >> I'm not sure that dd is the best strategy. Using Windows to do the copy >> may be better. > > But the Windows copy command isn't very good at copying the entire system, it > will fail to copy open files and certain "special" system files. On the other > hand dd will copy everything in the partition but at the expense of wasting > space by copying all the unused blocks. > > An alternative would be to use Driveimage XML > from within Windows to create a > compressed backup of all used blocks in the system. It's also available on a > Knopixx live CD which, I think, runs > it under wine so it could probably be run under wine on FreeBSD to create or > restore a backup of an entire Windows partition. For what it's worth, I've used EaseUs Todo Backup to completely clone a Windows install from one disk to another. It's not a spectacular program, but it's free to use and did the trick. -- :: Brandon J. Wandersee :: brandon.wandersee@gmail.com :: -------------------------------------------------- :: 'The best design is as little design as possible.' :: --- Dieter Rams ----------------------------------