Transfer and BackUp Data in RobyNet

Pubblicato il Aggiornato il di adminCategorie:_ Progetti in Corso

Table of Contents

In this page I use the terms BackUp and Dump as equivalent, although I know that they are not the same.

Please note: the links to external sites provided in this site were functioning as per Dec. 2022, when I started this project. In case they are no more working when you read this article, try looking for them in the WayBackMachine. 

Data Transfer and BackUp

  • allwin4roby: MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroup 3.11, Windows 95 RTM, Windows OSR2, Windows 98 SE, Windows NT 4.0 WS, Windows 2000 Pro, Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Bus.: to external HD, later moved to BackUp-NAS.
  • allos4roby
    • Windows 8.1 Professional: with the network’s shared folders.
    • …
  • virtual4roby:
    • Windows 8.1 Home: with the network’s shared folders.
    • …

Partition(s) Dump

All steps listed below are done in Linux MX Live during the setups and Debian 11 once the single setup of the machines was completed.

  1. Open a terminal window:
    1. in MX Live click on the Terminal icon or you can choose another Terminal like Xfce, are any other terminal you like, steps and results are the same, and
Select System → ROXTerm.
    1. in Debian 11:
* bla bla bla *
  1. During the setup phases, I wanted to have a rough estimation on the average time needed for the backups, thus I changed the prompt in order to keep track of the start and end time of the single backup (here and in the followng, # at the beginning was the standard prompt of ROXTerm, and should not typed when executing the command(s) in bold):
# PS1="h d t > "↵
  1. Check and locate the partition(s) of the source HD:

# sudo fdisk -l↵

  1. something like /dev/sdYX will be the partition to dump, whereby
    • Y is a letter indicating the device. The first hard drive of the machine is a, other hard drives become successive letter in alphabetical order. Make sure to select the correct device and hard drive. E.g., in my case with the Pavilion dv1000: /dev/sda.
    • X is a number from 1 to the number of partitions in the hard drive. E.g., in my case: /dev/sda1.
  2. backup the partition(s) you want to:
    • please note: I wanted to backup the partitions directly to a shared folder on my NAS server.
      However, doing as instructed on the site I’ve found looking for help, didn’t work, not sure whether due to the fact that I was using a Linux Live version or because I did something wrong.
      Anyway I was getting always errors and had neither time nor desire to look for the causes.
      Eventually, I decided to backup the partition(s) on an external HD, which was not so a bad idea because therewith I relieved also my home LAN.
      My workaround: I opened the target volume (of the external HD) in ThunderFileManager, copied the path shown in the header, and used that path instead of the proposed /mnt/<dump-folder>/.
# sudo dd if=/dev/sdYX | gzip -c | dd of=/media/demo/<volume-label>/<folder(s)>/<filename>.img.gz↵
    • please note: from Windows NT onward, the setup of those OS’ will create an extra partition, which you will see, e.g. in GParted, as system reserved. Be sure to backup that partition too.
  1. backup the MBR partition:
# sudo dd if=/dev/sdY | gzip -c | dd of=<volume-label>/<folder(s)>/<filename>.img.gz count=1 bs=512↵
  • please note: usually the size of the MBR is 512 bytes (446 bytes Bootloader, 64 bytes (4 * 16 bytes) Partition Tables, 2 bytes Magic Number: AA55H), as also used in the command line above. However, the MBR could have also other structures.
    Moreover: do not forget (as I did 🙄) count=1 bs=512 at the end of the command line, otherwise you will be backing up the whole HD! Well, it might be that you want that😉!

Partition Restore

Ref. HowTo, Samba Shares, Mounted Filesystems, Check Boot Partition, …

Average Times for BackingUp the Partitions

Target HD: Toshiba E329786 (3 Tb). Max. transfer rate: ~ 5.0 Gbit/s. USB 3.2 Gen 1 (USB 2.0 compatible).

Processor RAM Source HD Partition BackUp File (.gz)
Size Used MBR Partition
Time Size Time Size
Intel Pentium M processor 1.73 GHz 2 Gb (2 x 1 Gb) Komputerbay  PC2700 DDR 333 MHz – SODIMM, 200 pin … … … … … … …
Intel Core M-5Y10c 2 x 0.8 – 2 GHz 8 Gb, Dual-Channel L8T-128L9G Lite On L9G Series 128 Gb MLC SATA 6 Gbps High Perf. M.2 2280 Int. SSD.
Seq.R.: 472 MBytes/Sec;
Seq.W.: 312 MBytes/Sec;
Rand.Seek.R.W.: 289 MBytes/Sec;
IOPS 4KQD1: 24 MBytes/Sec.		 350 Mb 272,08 Mb … … … …
118 Gb 27,55 Gb … … … …
35 Gb 27,55 Gb … … … …
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