[clug] duplicate a file system to a smaller hard disk

[Chris Zhang]

Thanks Daniel,
Out of curiosity, how do you use tar in this instance? With rsync, is it
faster even we are copying everything for the first time?

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 10:26 PM, Daniel Pittman <daniel at rimspace.net>wrote:

> Chris Zhang <chris.zhang.syd at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > I have been looking for a way to clone a complete working Linux system on
> a
> > 250GB (22GB used) hard disk to a smaller hard disk.
>
> Boot something that can see both disks, then use mkfs and tar, cpio, rsync,
> or
> whatever else to do the data transfer.  I usually use rsync, because then I
> can do a live run (or two) to the target disk, then a much, much faster
> offline run, to keep downtime to a minimum.
>
> That reduces your problems to "reinstall the bootloader", which isn't that
> terrible, but is a touch distro-specific.  With details of the same we can
> advise specifically.
>
> [...]
>
> > It is just a thought and I don't have a clear idea as to how exactly I am
> > able to do it. Does anyone have any ideas? I am very open to completely
> new
> > approaches.
>
> I do this ... well.  I would say regularly, but it is probably only a
> half-dozen times a year or so in truth, because I don't have /that/ much
> hardware at home or work to upgrade in place.
>
> I think it is a good idea.  My present laptop is a year old, the Linux
> install
> two, and I am a tad disappointed I made the call to reinstall, because the
> previous installation went back to 1996, over three bits of hardware.  Oh,
> well.
>
> Regards,
>        Daniel
> --
> ✣ Daniel Pittman            ✉ daniel at rimspace.net            ☎ +61 401 155
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