Saving SD-image to mac?

[Pieter-Jan5000]

Hello,

I recently had a few crashes with my SD card so I would like to start saving the image on my computer. I have done a lot of uninstalls / installs on the image, and I don't want to redo the process every time.

When I execute:

sudo dd bs=1m if=/dev/rdisk1 of=RPi.img

I get an image RPi.img which looks pretty good, but it has a size of 8Gig, which is the size of my SD card. I only want to copy the used data, what can I do?

Thanks!

[ghans]

Any good compression program will see the free space , making
the resulting file ~ 700 megs big.

ghans

[Joe Schmoe]

As the previous poster noted, one way to do it is to just compress the resulting file. But this only solves one side of the problem (file size), but not the one that is really more likely to matter (the fact that it takes too long - because you're copying mostly unused space).

Another way to do it is to do a file copy, rather than an image copy. That is, do something like:

mkdir $HOME/PiBackup
cd $HOME/PiBackup
cp -a /mnt/SDcard .

[RaTTuS]

if you use rsync you don't have to switch the Pi off....
rsync -a / remotemachineip:/backupdirectory

[Joe Schmoe]

if you use rsync you don't have to switch the Pi off....
rsync -a / remotemachineip:/backupdirectory

Yes. rsync is a nice tool. Certainly the right approach once you've made a backup and want to keep it up-to-date.

[Mortimer]

That's quite interesting. Can RSync be used to create a sort of incremental backup to a network fileshare? Or is it a single snapshot only?

[Pieter-Jan5000]

Will the previous solutions result in an image? I really want an image that I can put on any SD card without having to install anything else first ...

[PIstolero]

No, with rsync you don´t get an bootable image from your SD card, only the files.
I don´t know OSX but with Linux you can use a pipe to zip the image on the fly, for example:
sudo dd bs=1m if=/dev/rdisk1 | gzip -c > /tmp/rpi.img
Does this work with OSX? (maybe something else then gzip)

[Mortimer]

Mac OS X has gzip.

[wpns]

My Mac Mini (10.7) won't mount the file system, so I've been using:

sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk5s1
sudo dd bs=100m if=/dev/rdisk5 of=WPNSbackup.img
sudo diskutil eject /dev/rdisk5

And yeah, it's ugly, but makes an image that will be restorable using dd on the mac. 8G of 'wasted' space on my Mac isn't noticable. 8*)

[Joe Schmoe]

My Mac Mini (10.7) won't mount the file system, so I've been using:

sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk5s1
sudo dd bs=100m if=/dev/rdisk5 of=WPNSbackup.img
sudo diskutil eject /dev/rdisk5

And yeah, it's ugly, but makes an image that will be restorable using dd on the mac. 8G of 'wasted' space on my Mac isn't noticable. 8*)

As I said, it's not the space that's the issue (in these modern, enlightened times), but the *time*.

To my mind, the problem is that it is going to take a long time [*] to make an 8G image, and most of that time is wasted (i.e., copying empty space).

[*] Or, as Harrison Ford says in "6 Days, 7 Nights", "A long, long, long, long, *long* time" (one of my favorite movie lines)

P.S. Yes, you don't get a "ready to go" image, but you're a smart guy. You'll figure out how to restore it - it is quite easy.

P.P.S. If I were going this, I'd make a ZIP file of the FAT partition - just do it once and be done with that end of it. Then I'd use rsync to make and maintain an incremental, file-by-file, image of the Linux partition.

[James80A]

Hi. I've just tried this dd command: sudo dd bs=1m if=/dev/disk1 of=RPi.img.

With this result:
3781+1 records in
3781+1 records out
3965190144 bytes transferred in 686.081772 secs (5779472 bytes/sec)

My question is where is the output file located?

Thanks.

[RaTTuS]

Hi. I've just tried this dd command: sudo dd bs=1m if=/dev/disk1 of=RPi.img.

With this result:
3781+1 records in
3781+1 records out
3965190144 bytes transferred in 686.081772 secs (5779472 bytes/sec)

My question is where is the output file located?

Thanks.

in the directory that your ran the commandfrom

[jtillinghast]

I'm trying to figure out what to grab for the image... When I run "mount," I have two choices to choose from:

Code: Select all

/dev/mmcblk0p2 on / type ext4 (rw,noatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,relatime,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/mmcblk0p1 on /boot type vfat (rw,noatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)

Silly question, but I'm only going to grab if=/dev/mmbcblk0p1 , right (since it's the one with /boot)?
Thanks!

Edit: Also, I tried to run "bs=1m," but got 'invalid number '1m.' I tried 1M, and it seemed to work, but I probably just massively changed the intent of the instruction, right?

[ghans]

I don't think it makes much sense to use dd on a running system.
Plug the SD Card into a Linux or Mac box , then you can use
the instructions.

ghans

[wpns]

/*
Then I'd use rsync to make and maintain an incremental, file-by-file, image of the Linux partition.
*/

Does that work on a running system?

[RaTTuS]

/*
Then I'd use rsync to make and maintain an incremental, file-by-file, image of the Linux partition.
*/

Does that work on a running system?

yes .....
YMMV
depending that you are not changing system files at the same time you should be fine

[bender86]

Salut,

Quand j'essaie de backuper la carte sur mon macavec:
sudo dd bs=1m if=/dev/rdisk0 of=RPi.img

ça tourne indéfiniment et si je l'arrête avec CTRL + C, je m'apperçois que la taille est déjà à plus de 15Go or c'est une carte de 4Go

Si une âme charitable pouvait m'aider

[thbodart]

Bonjour bender86.

Il y a beaucoup de chance que disk0 soit le disque principal du Mac et pas la carte SD.

Thierry