DD not working--SUCCESS!

[Ian Malone]

Karl Larsen wrote:
> Jacques B. wrote:

>>  Because the clone would be of a
>> running system.  So booting from it would be comparable to booting
>> from a system that crashed (I'm making an educated guess at that one).
>>   
>    Not a good guess. To use DD you need a computer with dd and a fast 
> cpu. I did top while dd was working and it was taking 70% of the cpu's 
> time :-P
> 

It's one of the oldest Unix programs: it will copy as fast as your
system can go.  Yes, a fast system will copy faster.

(BTW, it is a good guess.  You are copying straight off the device,
bypassing the filesystem.  The primary problem I think is the
possibility of missing cached writes.  Things like log files will
also be in an odd state, but that is unlikely to ever be critical.
However backups, and what you are doing is essentially the same
thing, are best done on unmounted systems.)

-- 
imalone