[GLLUG] Dual-Boot Copy?

[Michael George]

On Wed, October 31, 2007 12:53 pm, Michael Watters wrote:
> Benjamin Cathey wrote:
>> Really - Why? I've used dd (and netcat) over a network to clone hdds
>> before (of different sizes) and NEVER run into a problem. Why would
>> there be a security issue if both the hdds are in the same machine and
>> it's behind a firewall that doesn't allow any incoming traffic? It
>> seems that using partimage and have to back up each partition
>> separately and then having to back up and restore the boot sector is
>> more of a pain. Now I used to enjoy the long way around and love the
>> command line but, like I said, I am lucky if I get 10 minutes to
>> myself with my family and work, etc. dd just seems plain easier and I
>> have NEVER had any problems with it.
> I'm a big fan of the KISS principle.  dd the drive to the new one and
> resize the file systems, that's all you need to do.

Well, if we're talking about *nix filesystems, I prefer rsync because I
can run it against an active drive at a low priority to get all the data
moved and then whenever I need to clean it up I can just run rsync again
to get the stuff that changed.  With dd you have to have the filesystem
offline to duplicate it and restore it.  I don't like that kind of
downtime.

Also, maybe I'm ol' school, but resizing a partition is not something I
take lightly.  I think the potential for massive data loss is high.  IMHO,
working within the filesystem is safer than doing tricks at the hardware
level.  If I had a system that isn't critical, then I might view it
differently, but currently all my systems are critical and I don't like to
flirt with data loss on them.  YMMV.

-Michael George