I want to copy all contents from one disk to another HDD. I thought the cp command might do the trick.
cp -aR /dev/nvme0n1p1/* /dev/sda1/
/dev/nvme01np1 is the old disk that I want its content to be copied and /dev/sda1 is the new disk. However I got an error saying that /dev/nvme01np1 is not a directory.
It depends what you’re trying to do.
Using dd is good for cloning disks. This operates at the block level, low level.
If you are making a backup, rsync is sufficient. It operates at the file system level, above block device level.
If the disks are already mounted (eg have another directory not in the /dev directory), using the rsync command is the recommended way. If you have gigabytes to transfer, rsync is handy because if the process is interrupted, it can restart at the point it was up to.
If there’s hundreds of thousands of files the file list may be too long and it errors. I’ve overcome this by batching the rsync job into subdirectories at a time.
rsync -av --progress /path/of/source /path/of/target
Rsync can be used across a network or web securely with ssh and ssh keys and scheduled using the system cron. It's a handy tool to know.
rsync -e "ssh -i $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa" -avz --progress /path/of/source user@host:/path/of/target
More info
alpine-rpi-*-armhf.tar.gz to the first sd card partition - p0 that is mounted to /home/tim/boot. Can I use cp here? dd does not work as it cannot copy normal files, just devices?
– Timo
Oct 23 '21 at 19:11
--progress and not --show-progress.
– c-x-berger
Aug 24 '22 at 20:39
Copying files from the currently running system to another disk is problematic. You should better use a live system. But with cp you cannot copy devices from /dev, you can only copy between the mount points of the devices.
If you want to clone a partition or hard drive, it's better to use dd which copies blocks instead of files.
Make sure, the second hard drive has at least the same size as the first one.
Startup a live system
Copy hard drive, e.g.:
dd if=/dev/nvme0n1p of=/dev/sda bs=32M
or using cat (via):
cat /dev/nvme0n1p >/dev/sda
Read:
If you are using version 2.6.9 of rsync, plz use this:
rsync -avz --progress /path/of/source /path/of/target
More info about rsync:
rsync --help
rsync version 2.6.9 protocol version 29
Copyright (C) 1996-2006 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.
<http://rsync.samba.org/>
Capabilities: 64-bit files, socketpairs, hard links, symlinks, batchfiles,
inplace, IPv6, 64-bit system inums, 64-bit internal inums
rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you
are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. See the GNU
General Public Licence for details.
rsync is a file transfer program capable of efficient remote update
via a fast differencing algorithm.
Usage: rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
or rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]
The ':' usages connect via remote shell, while '::' & 'rsync://' usages connect
to an rsync daemon, and require SRC or DEST to start with a module name.
Options
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
--no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see manpage caveat)
-c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
-a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
--no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-R, --relative use relative path names
--no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
-b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
--backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
--suffix=SUFFIX set backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
-u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
--inplace update destination files in-place (SEE MAN PAGE)
--append append data onto shorter files
-d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
--copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
--safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the source tree
-k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to a dir into referent dir
-K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
-H, --hard-links preserve hard links
-p, --perms preserve permissions
--executability preserve the file's executability
--chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
-o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
-g, --group preserve group
--devices preserve device files (super-user only)
--specials preserve special files
-D same as --devices --specials
-t, --times preserve times
-O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
--super receiver attempts super-user activities
-S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
-n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
-W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
-x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
-B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
-e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
--rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on the remote machine
--existing skip creating new files on receiver
--ignore-existing skip updating files that already exist on receiver
--remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dirs)
--del an alias for --delete-during
--delete delete extraneous files from destination dirs
--delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
--delete-during receiver deletes during transfer, not before
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
--delete-excluded also delete excluded files from destination dirs
--ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
--force force deletion of directories even if not empty
--max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
--max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
--min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
--partial keep partially transferred files
--partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
--delay-updates put all updated files into place at transfer's end
-m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from the file-list
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
--timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
-I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match in size and mod-time
--size-only skip files that match in size
--modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
-T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
-y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
--compare-dest=DIR also compare destination files relative to DIR
--copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
--link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
-z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
--compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
-C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files the same way CVS does
-f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
-F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
--exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
--exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
--include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
--include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
--files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
-0, --from0 all *-from/filter files are delimited by 0s
--address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
--port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
--sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
--blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
--stats give some file-transfer stats
-8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
-h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
--progress show progress during transfer
-P same as --partial --progress
-i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
--out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
--log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
--log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
--password-file=FILE read password from FILE
--list-only list the files instead of copying them
--bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
--write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
--only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating destination
--read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
--protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
-E, --extended-attributes copy extended attributes
--cache disable fcntl(F_NOCACHE)
-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
--version print version number
(-h) --help show this help (-h works with no other options)
Use "rsync --daemon --help" to see the daemon-mode command-line options.
Please see the rsync(1) and rsyncd.conf(5) man pages for full documentation.
See http://rsync.samba.org/ for updates, bug reports, and answers
-z flag, which tells rsync to needlessly compress and uncompress your file data while moving it across system memory. A lot of potentially wasted effort, for no possible gain. OTOH, you most likely DO want both the -S flag and (if copying an entire filesystem) the -H flag.
– FeRD
Mar 21 '24 at 06:27
The cp command would only worked if you had tried it on already mounted devices. You could run the exact by using the mounting points of those devices.
cp -aR /path/to/mount/point/of/dev/nvme0n1p1/* /path/to/mount/point/of/dev/sda1/
Usually you could find the mount points either by running mount or df -h.
Of coursee dd is your friend when it comes to actually clone one device to an other (faster too). Also please note that most of the folders under the /dev are special folders, kind of devices folders, if that makes any sense.
You have to copy from one mountpoint to another. Instead of
cp -aR /dev/nvme0n1p1/* /dev/sda1/
your should do
cp -aR /run/* /sda1/home
because you mounted disk 1 at /run/ and disk 2 at /sda1/home if I understand you correctly.
dd(also from live system) which copies blocks instead of files. – pLumo Jun 18 '18 at 13:19cpto copy one device to another; you must mount the devices' filesystems and copy the files, then. Or (if the sizes match) useddto copy the blocks from one device to another (overwriting everything on the destination device!). – U. Windl Feb 03 '22 at 22:51