On 7/1/2010 8:18 AM, Saturn2888 wrote:
>
> Can't I just dd the entire partition or that one directory into a file?

If it will fit and you unmount the partition during the copy, that would 
be fine.  You'd have to copy back to a partition or loopback-mount the 
file before being able to access it, though.  And be aware that if you 
overwrite your previous copy on the next run and the source drive fails 
before the copy completes you won't have anything usable left.

Note that the problem with file-oriented copies that is being discussed 
is actually a scaling issue handling the large number of hardlinks.  For 
a small system with a relatively large amount of RAM, you might be able 
to use rsync -aH across the whole archive. At some large number of files 
this becomes impractical - but it is so much easier that I'd try it 
first.  You should also make sure nothing changes during an rsync 
attempt since the hardlink tracking could miss if it does.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell AT gmail DOT com

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