Backups

This page describes how you can backup and restore your laptop's data.

Backup the SSD contents

First, boot from an external medium (not the SSD), e.g. from a USB-attached disk. Then get a dd image of the whole SSD like this:

$ dd if=/dev/hdc of=a110_ssd_hdc.dd

or in compressed format:

$ dd if=/dev/hdc | gzip > a110_ssd_hdc.gz

This image should contain the whole SSD data, including all partitions and the partition table.

To write the dd image you saved above you can do:

$ dd if=a110_ssd_hdc.dd of=/dev/hdc

To write the compressed image you can do:

$ zcat <name>.gz | dd of=/dev/hdc

Before backing up or restoring, enable the 32-bit mode using hdparm:

$ hdparm -c2 /dev/hdc

The transfer rates raise from 2.9 MB/s to approx. 4-5 MB/s.