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Last time when I cloned my data HDD the task was easy. I had 4TB source and 8TB target. Now it is worse: I have two 8TB disks. My question is obvious: how do I recognize from lsblk the right paths to if=/dev and of=/dev so that I do not destroy my disk with wrong target and wrong source switched in if and of parameters to dd ??

EDIT

I'm running ubuntu 20.10 desktop from an USB stick Kingston Traveller.

EDIT 2

In fact the situation is for the time being hypothetical . I haven't now the second 8TB disk with me, I just wanted to know how to cope with it once I have it. Last, but not least I think that it is not a good idea to plug and unplug the empty disk while the system is up to recognize which I can safely delete, i.e. which should be the argument of of=.

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  • @user68186 Please see my edit.
    – user2925716
    Apr 9, 2021 at 21:50
  • Hypothetically speaking, if you buy a new 8TB disk, it will not be formatted. lsblk should show you that. Then you will know which drive is old and which is new.
    – user68186
    Apr 9, 2021 at 22:12
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    You can always just mount the partition in question and look at the contents to decide.
    – ubfan1
    Apr 9, 2021 at 22:56
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    When booted from Live disk open Gnome-Disks. It will tell you what is what.
    – C.S.Cameron
    Apr 10, 2021 at 1:39
  • @C.S.Cameron How do I run Gnome-Disks and how do I recognize from it what is what ??
    – user2925716
    Apr 10, 2021 at 15:14

1 Answer 1

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You can use these to see details, there are others also:

sudo lshw -class disk
udisksctl status

But dd is about the worst way to copy a 8TB drive. dd aka Disk Destroyer copies all the blank/unallocated space, so very slow.

Also you then cannot mount both drives at same time, as you have duplicated UUIDs & GUIDs which is not allowed. Or if you do force a mount, you may copy some data to one drive one time & some to the other next time, getting them out of sync.

Better to gpt partition and reinstall and use rsync to copy data. Or other image copy tools like clonezilla.

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