1

I have some constraints that I am working with:

-The server that I want to clone is currently at a distant facility that we do not have much access to.

-We do not have internet access to said server.

-We can visit the server physically, but only for brief amounts of time <6hrs.

-It is almost a two hour drive to said facility.

-I am using Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS

-This is an HP proliant mini server

I need a very fast method to clone the 1TB drive. Disk to disk is too slow for the task. My boss feels weird about me using non-native software, so I need a Unix/Ubuntu solution.

I know that dd piped through gzip compresses out unused space, but I don't think that would help us very much.

Nikki
  • 11
  • 2

1 Answers1

0

After enough tinkering I engineered a viable script solution. The best way to optimize dd is increase/decrease bs.

This requires super user mode: sudo su

Then execute: pv -tpreb /dev/sda | dd of=/dev/sdb bs=64M

pv -tpreb displays a visual representation of the download rate along with download per second.

Changing the bs (blocksize) enabled a faster data rate for my cpu. Apparently it can handle a larger bs than I thought it could.

Nikki
  • 11
  • 2