From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Nov 5 21:05:08 2007 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 A704416A468 for ; Mon, 5 Nov 2007 21:05:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (wonkity.com [67.158.26.137]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57C9513C491 for ; Mon, 5 Nov 2007 21:05:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id lA5L4wC0019722; Mon, 5 Nov 2007 14:04:58 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.14.1/8.14.1/Submit) with ESMTP id lA5L4wQm019719; Mon, 5 Nov 2007 14:04:58 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 14:04:58 -0700 (MST) From: Warren Block To: James In-Reply-To: <1194272457.44119.3.camel@secretariat.lanl.gov> Message-ID: <20071105135545.V19602@wonkity.com> References: <472F74A9.9090400@calarts.edu> <1194272457.44119.3.camel@secretariat.lanl.gov> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:04:58 -0700 (MST) Cc: Sean Murphy , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Help Failing Disk Problem 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: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:05:08 -0000 On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, James wrote: > On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 11:53 -0800, Sean Murphy wrote: > >> I have a FreeBSD 6.2 Release box with a single ide that has user data >> and the FreeBSD OS on a hard disk that is failing. I need advice on the >> best way to clone the entire disk (or at least the data) onto a larger >> ide disk drive, then pull the failing disk and replace it with the >> clone. What is the best way in FreeBSD to do that? > > The best way is to do it regularly before the hard drive is failing. > > Given that you haven't done that, there're a few methods. I'm a big fan > of rsync, which is the nectar of the gods, but a lot of folks seem to > prefer dd for this kind of thing. rsync is too high-level, and may not do exactly the right thing with links or sparse files or who knows what. dd is too low-level--you get the same partition table/bsdlabel and the exact same slice/partition sizes. That's okay on an identical hard drive, but a pain on one that's larger. dump, on the other hand, is just right. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA