mirror whole hard disk with rsync

[Ramón Oliver]

I want to create an exact copy of a whole hard disk and to maintain this copy 
synchronised with the "original" one. The idea is to have a safe backup that 
allows me, in case the "original" disk fails, to change it by the "clone" 
disk and start the computer as if nothing had happened. The computer runs 
Linux.

I heard a good option for this purpose is to use dd to make the copy of the 
whole hard disk followed by rsync (launched via crontab) to synchronise the 
"original" and "clone" drives. rsync seems ideal for this task, but

How do I do that with rsync!?

Cheers,

Ramón

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Ramón Oliver
Departament de Física
Universitat de les Illes Balears
E-07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
e-mail: ramon.oliver at uib.es
Phone: +34 971 172836        Fax: +34 971 173426
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