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Yurii Rashkovskii
Asked: 2009-06-29 00:23:50 +0800 CST

Cost efficient e3fs snapshot

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I have a small interesting problem to resolve. I have a dedicated linux box at SoftLayer with 240GB HDD (about 4GB used :), and I need to get its disk image locally at home in order to convert it to VirtualBox format. In order to avoid hitting the traffic cap, I need to spend as little traffic as I can. Any ideas?

backup linux virtualbox image traffic

3 Answers

  1. Alternatively you can use 'rsync' to transfer just the files you need, drop that onto a Linux system located at your home, fix up things like the Master Boot Record (MBR) which will not be correctly transferred and then fire it up under a virtualization technology.

    You will be looking for something like;

    rsync -vaHPS --numeric-ids --exclude=/proc --exclude=sys [email protected]:/* /local
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  2. An alternate option is to make a tarball of all the data, which is probably a few hundred MB less then the total, and transfer that.

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  3. If SoftLayer supports sneakernet (i.e. have them mail a copy to you), that's probably your best option.

    Else, you'll still have to deal with the 4GB (possibly gzipped) transfer somehow. I would suggest getting the smallest possible image and copying it over.

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