[CALUG] SSH question

[Bryan Breen]

James Ewing Cottrell 3rd wrote:
...
> I would pose the opposite question: why do you want to do this? Any 
> speedup you might get are likely to be offset by the pitfalls you are 
> likely to encounter.

The original query was how to make an image of the drive in its current 
state so it could be restore at a later date.

The concerns about the hardware being similar for the restore are 
obviously not a concern - it is the same. As for it being unmounted, 
that also was implied by the original question. The system to be imaged 
is a windows install that Jason wanted to blast away and install his 
flavor of choice of OS and be able to restore on the day he has to turn 
it back in to his company.

If you know of a solution to reliably copy, and later write, NTFS file 
systems (the one Jason has to and I have had to deal with), and ensure 
they are identical (not just similar), I'm all ears. My understanding is 
that the write ability for NTFS in Linux is an exceptionally larger 
gamble than the bit for bit copy that dd provides.


This discussion wasn't as much about "what's the best way to maintain 
long term back up data?" as it was "what's the best way to make a remote 
bit for bit snapshot to later be restored in full?". Similar ideas, but 
quite different intentions.