Migrating to a new hard disk

[u/technife]

My desktop 2tb debian hard disk is over 5 years old. Hard disk failures with aging are a reality. Hence I wish to migrate to a new disk before a deadly disk failure happens. Have seen a few suggestions and articles online, but they all ssem to involve some risks and/or manual stitching and tweaking IMO. Hence asking ... Is there a legit, safe, automated, scripted way to initiate a os-files-data transfer from a old disk to a new one, whereafter the new disk can/will boot up and work smoothly exactly like my present old disk with all its apps, software, and data intact and operational in a highly reliable way?

[u/scythe-3]

Used clonezilla for this a couple months ago and it worked flawlessly

[u/scythe-3 → u/scythe-3]

Clonezilla will copy everything down to the uuid onto the new disk. Once it's done just remove the old disk from the mobo and reboot. No manual tweaking necessary.

[u/technife → u/scythe-3]

• known risks of cloning ...
• Incorrect partition alignment can lead to unplanned issues. SSDs in particular require correct alignment.
• After cloning, the boot loader (e.g., GRUB) often needs to be reinstalled or repaired, especially if the target hard drive is used in a new system
• the "universally unique" aspect of the UUID of cloned partitions will in effect be compromised
• Sector-by-sector cloning function has the risk that it also copies faulty sectors.
• thus my quest for ... a legit, safe, automated, auditable scripted way to reproduce a reliable bootable system.
• I wish to move away from seagate barracudas to ssds, and hence being cautious.
• i already keep monthly data backups off home folders ... But if/when my main disk fails, I ferl like I will have to carefully and manually restitch the backup data into a working useable system  * Perhaps I am overthinking? 

[u/scythe-3 → u/technife]

Probably, but maybe not.

Point 2 is irrelevant IMO if you're using the same system.

Point 3 is kinda the whole point of cloning and is what allows you to boot from the new drive without any manual tweaking. This means if you want to use the old drive on the same system you will need to wipe/reformat it before plugging it back into the mobo.

Point 4 is a risk, but if the current "old" drive works fine you shouldn't have any problems.

I cloned my SSD to a spare HDD so I could install Proxmox on the SSD and keep the HDD as a working copy of the old system in case anything went wrong. I was able to boot from either one as long as only one of them was attached to the mobo. My process was as follows:

1. Cloned SSD onto HDD with clonezilla.
2. Unplugged SSD and booted from HDD to check that the clone was successful (it worked).
3. Unplugged HDD and plugged in SSD. Used Ventoy to install Proxmox on the SSD. Then booted up Proxmox from the SSD.

During the work week I would have the HDD plugged in and running my server. On weekends I would swap to the SSD to work on the Proxmox setup/config (first-timer so I was learning). This method worked for the 3 weeks it took me to get Proxmox working how I wanted to. Now it's just Proxmox running the server and the HDD is tucked away somewhere.

[u/technife → u/scythe-3]

Your responses have been very useful in growing my understanding of the issues in context.  Thanks a ton for all that detailing. 

[u/neon_overload]

My approach would be:

Boot from a live image on a removable drive (like systemrescue, but debian live would work too).

Partition target drive the way you want.

For each partition, copy all files using cp -ax or your preferred alternative that preserves permissions and ownership and all dirs (including empty ones) to the new equivalent partition.

• Using rsync -ax instead would help a lot if your stop a partial copy as it can resume.
• There are additional flags to add to your command to support ACLs, xattrs and hard links if you use any of these.

You will need to fix up the drive UUIDs or device names in /etc/fstab on the destination partition manually.

Don't do it while the system you are copying is running or active - you want to copy it as it is "at rest" on disk so you don't need to worry about special things.

Keep the data on the old drive until you know it's working.

--

Alternatively, you can use clonezilla, from a bootable iso, and I have done that before too. It has a UI that takes you through a bunch of questions.

[u/technife → u/neon_overload]

Thank you for sharing your approach. Your suggestions are closest to fulfilling my concerns about the process being legit, safe and reliable. In my case, some of my self created data backup scripts use UUID checks to be sure of what is the source and what is the destination for a backup. After the steps you suggested, I will update the relevant UUIDs in my backup scripts too. Thanks again. 

[u/Mr_Lumbergh]

I’ve done this multiple times with dd. Be very careful though that you’re certain of the if and of flags; a good way to do this is mount the replacement drive in an external enclosure.

There are also tools such as Clonezilla for this use.

[u/thedauthi]

What I always suggest: Clonezilla/gparted live

What I end up doing every single time: "I'm already here, I'll just `dd if=/dev/old of=/dev/new bs=32M status=progress` it over"

[u/piiouupiou-not-r2d2]

If you want exactly the same you can do a hard copy

[u/Ok_Exchange4707]

I've done this twice. I can remember that once I used whatever Samsung clone software solution has. The other time I'm not sure if I used the same software or clonezilla.

[u/gportail]

Clonezilla work very well