Re: rsync

[guerrier]

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 4:15 PM, Ole Tange <tange@binf.ku.dk> wrote:

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 4:10 PM, Matt Oates (Home) <mattoates@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12 May 2011 14:57, guerrier <guerrier@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 9:48 AM, Matt Oates (Home) <mattoates@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Is parallel a great idea here?
>>
>> That's my real question.  I have a failing hdd, from which i would
>> like to move as much data as possible as fast possible.
>
> If it was me I'd chuck in a blank USB disk and use the 'dd' command to
> just verbatim copy the partition/disk over, this is about as quick as
> you are going to get.

Use:
 dd conv=noerror if=/dev/disk1 of=/dev/disk2

or look at dd_rescue and ddrescue. These programs are made for your
task. And after that: fsck of the copy.

GNU Parallel would only make matters worse in this case as it will
make the disk arms thrash (which is likely to kill a sick disk).


/Ole

Thanks.  Y'all been very helpful.
guerrier