Software to partition-clone and *verify*? (Win or Linux)

[nageme]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

 

[Solaris17]

I mean if you want sector by sector that’s as 1:1 as your going to get and all the big players do it:

Acronis
Paragon
Clonezilla

Probably macrium reflect

 

[nageme]

As far as I recall, no obvious "verify" option?

 

[Solaris17]

As far as I recall, no obvious "verify" option?

You copy a sector or you don’t. You can’t copy part of one; and sector by sector doesn’t care what data is on it.

 

[igormp]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

dd, really.
If you want to verify after the copy, simply do a "dd if=/dev/mydrive | sha256sum" for both drives and compare their hashes.

I just moved data from a 2TB SSD to a 4TB HDD this week this way, no issues whatsoever.

 

[Morgoth]

i use Paragon Hard Disk Manager™ 15 Suite and i love it very flexible program

 

[evernessince]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

Macrium has an option to verify an image or clone after completion. I always verify my backups with it.

 

[Bones]

Acronis is what I use for cloning drives and it works great.

 

[kapone32]

Most software will work just fine. I like Macrium the best though.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

I've used Acronis in the past and it's been great or buggy. I suppose it depends on the year you get it and what features you use. If there is anything I learned the hard way is with NVMe and Windows is be sure to use the Standard Microsoft NVMe driver if you intend to restore to a different NVMe drive or you might not be able to boot after restoring the image.

 

[AleXXX666]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager, v15/16/17. A must for me.

 

[NoLoihi]

On Linux, tee /dev/outputdisk </dev/inputdisk | xxhsum --binary -H3 && xxhsum --binary -H3 /dev/outputdisk will give you a 64-bit checksum of the source disk followed by one for the target disk. You can get 128 bits off the slower previous algorithm by specifying -H2 --tag in place of -H3. (--tag to keep the dumb format.) xxHash3 does have an 128b variant, though my xxhsum executable doesn't seem to support that.

Going with tee saves you one full read of the originating disk. You could also swap out xxhsum for some other hashing program, such as md5sum (pass -b as well).

xxhsum, you should be able to obtain it from some package named xxhash, xxHash or perhaps similar, if you don't already have it.

 

[nageme]

Thanks all.

The idea isn't to copy a whole disk, but a specific partition.

Any automatic way to create an exact-sized new partition, exactly like the source partition?
Might dd (or tee) overwrite beyond partition boundaries? (i.e, with /dev/sda1 and such.)
I guess filesystems in general (and NTFS) are partition-relative and don't need the metadata adjusted to match the absolute offset in disk?

Was hoping for something GUI-based, or at least with progress indication.

You copy a sector or you don’t. You can’t copy part of one; and sector by sector doesn’t care what data is on it.

In theory. And yet data verification exists, for the rare cases where fishy stuff does happen.

Macrium has an option to verify an image or clone after completion.

It seems to imply it verifies image files, not data written to partitions?

You could also swap out xxhsum for some other hashing program, such as md5sum (pass -b as well).

I like xxh for custom made stuff, but for casual verification not having to install anything is an advantage.

 

[evernessince]

It seems to imply it verifies image files, not data written to partitions?

"Backup verification checks the entire contents of backup files against MD5 message digests (Hashes) created from the source data when the backup was created."

It's verifying any backed up files against their original MD5 hash. If you are doing a partition or whole disk image it would check each and every file within those against their original.

 

[Solaris17]

In theory. And yet data verification exists, for the rare cases where fishy stuff does happen.

I mean not really theory. Are you doing an image? or are you raw dumping 1:1 with the disks next to each other? It will verify a sector write, but there isnt going to be any data integrity involved. You only get into that if you are pulling and saving images.

 

[OneMoar]

reflect ftw anything else is second fiddle.

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

+1 for Paragon, but they all work just fine.