Backup of Disk Drive

[Alice Daniel]

Is there any way to generate a "ghost image" of a disk that is Tru64 version 4.0f (for example, download the disk image to a server?). Does a COTS package exist to do this or is there any procedure to perform this task?

I am aware of cloning, but wondered if anything else was available?

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

you can use dd to create an image like
dd if=/dev/rrz0c of=/path/image.dat bs=1024k
This will create an image of disk rz0. If possible do the copy while any file systems are umounted.

greetings,

Michael

[Han Pilmeyer · Accepted solution]

"dd" is certainly not the recommended solution to backup file systems (although people have done this before). You would get a faster and more flexible solution using vdump (possibly in combination with a "dd pipe"). This would allow you to restore individual files too and also restores to disks of different geometry. It would be faster since you do not have to back up unused file system space and the swap space.

If you want something that is more ghost-like and tapes are a possibility too, then you could take a look at btcreate.