Software to partition-clone and *verify*? (Win or Linux)

[nageme]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

 

[Solaris17]

I mean if you want sector by sector that’s as 1:1 as your going to get and all the big players do it:

Acronis
Paragon
Clonezilla

Probably macrium reflect

 

[nageme]

As far as I recall, no obvious "verify" option?

 

[Solaris17]

As far as I recall, no obvious "verify" option?

You copy a sector or you don’t. You can’t copy part of one; and sector by sector doesn’t care what data is on it.

 

[igormp]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

dd, really.
If you want to verify after the copy, simply do a "dd if=/dev/mydrive | sha256sum" for both drives and compare their hashes.

I just moved data from a 2TB SSD to a 4TB HDD this week this way, no issues whatsoever.

 

[Morgoth]

i use Paragon Hard Disk Manager™ 15 Suite and i love it very flexible program

 

[evernessince]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

Macrium has an option to verify an image or clone after completion. I always verify my backups with it.

 

[Bones]

Acronis is what I use for cloning drives and it works great.

 

[Kapone33]

Most software will work just fine. I like Macrium the best though.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

I've used Acronis in the past and it's been great or buggy. I suppose it depends on the year you get it and what features you use. If there is anything I learned the hard way is with NVMe and Windows is be sure to use the Standard Microsoft NVMe driver if you intend to restore to a different NVMe drive or you might not be able to boot after restoring the image.

 

[AleXXX666]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager, v15/16/17. A must for me.

 

[NoLoihi]

On Linux, tee /dev/outputblkdev </dev/inputblkdev | xxhsum --binary -H3 && xxhsum --binary -H3 /dev/outputblkdev (blkdev, block devices, are /dev/sda or /dev/sde4) will give you a 64-bit checksum of the source block device (disk or partition) followed by one for the target block device. You can get 128 bits off the slower previous xxHash algorithm version by specifying -H2 --tag in place of -H3. (--tag to keep the dumb format.) xxHash3 does have an 128b variant, though my xxhsum executable doesn't seem to support that.

Going with tee saves you one full read of the originating disk. You could also swap out xxhsum for some other hashing program, such as md5sum (pass -b as well).

xxhsum, you should be able to obtain it from some package named xxhash, xxHash or perhaps similar, if you don't already have it.
See my newer post in this thread for additional considerations, sorry for giving correct but incomplete advice. :/

 

[nageme]

Thanks all.

The idea isn't to copy a whole disk, but a specific partition.

Any automatic way to create an exact-sized new partition, exactly like the source partition?
Might dd (or tee) overwrite beyond partition boundaries? (i.e, with /dev/sda1 and such.)
I guess filesystems in general (and NTFS) are partition-relative and don't need the metadata adjusted to match the absolute offset in disk?

Was hoping for something GUI-based, or at least with progress indication.

You copy a sector or you don’t. You can’t copy part of one; and sector by sector doesn’t care what data is on it.

In theory. And yet data verification exists, for the rare cases where fishy stuff does happen.

Macrium has an option to verify an image or clone after completion.

It seems to imply it verifies image files, not data written to partitions?

You could also swap out xxhsum for some other hashing program, such as md5sum (pass -b as well).

I like xxh for custom made stuff, but for casual verification not having to install anything is an advantage.

 

[evernessince]

It seems to imply it verifies image files, not data written to partitions?

"Backup verification checks the entire contents of backup files against MD5 message digests (Hashes) created from the source data when the backup was created."

It's verifying any backed up files against their original MD5 hash. If you are doing a partition or whole disk image it would check each and every file within those against their original.

 

[Solaris17]

In theory. And yet data verification exists, for the rare cases where fishy stuff does happen.

I mean not really theory. Are you doing an image? or are you raw dumping 1:1 with the disks next to each other? It will verify a sector write, but there isnt going to be any data integrity involved. You only get into that if you are pulling and saving images.

 

[OneMoar]

reflect ftw anything else is second fiddle.

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

+1 for Paragon, but they all work just fine.

 

[AleXXX666]

Thanks all.

The idea isn't to copy a whole disk, but a specific partition.

Any automatic way to create an exact-sized new partition, exactly like the source partition?
Might dd (or tee) overwrite beyond partition boundaries? (i.e, with /dev/sda1 and such.)
I guess filesystems in general (and NTFS) are partition-relative and don't need the metadata adjusted to match the absolute offset in disk?

Was hoping for something GUI-based, or at least with progress indication.


In theory. And yet data verification exists, for the rare cases where fishy stuff does happen.


It seems to imply it verifies image files, not data written to partitions?


I like xxh for custom made stuff, but for casual verification not having to install anything is an advantage.

paragon could copy partitions only too.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Clonezilla is best for me, especially Linux. Compression, checksums, encrypt...

 

[NoLoihi]

The idea isn't to copy a whole disk, but a specific partition.

Bad wording on my part, was a bit under the weather. You can, and should, pass partitions. If you wanted to do whole disks, you'd have to remember to have a program rework the GPT so you get new disk and partition GUIDs.*
Here comes another complication into play: The filesystems should never be bigger than their containing partitions. So, shrink them first, if the target is smaller, or expand them at the end, if the target is bigger. Now, changing FS sizes (especially if files have to be relocated) will (obviously) affect their hashes.
So, use some partitioning tool (I’d say GParted is still the leading choice, unfortunately, KDE’s has done something weird last time I’ve tried.), make the target partition in there (if not done already) and shrink the source partition if necessary. (It’s not strictly required to have their sizes match down to the last byte, but then you’d have to exclude the excess of one partition from the hashing , so make sure they match, instead.) GParted will take care of maintaining the partition tables, no worries there.
Then, run the code off my previous post. This will copy the data and give you the hashes. This, in itself, does not require any external adjustments.
Finally, if the target has more space that you want assigned to the partition and the filesystem within, resize them both as you would at any other time. GParted will keep FS and part. sizes in sync automatically.
Both of these resizing operations will lead to altered hashes, so you cannot easily, anymore, verify hashes after those—you’d have to use file-level hashes or get somewhat ingenious and exclude changed file-system structures.
So, yeah, quite a bit more complicated than it seemed at first, though definitely manageable. I’m not aware of any GUI-programs that offer that functionality, maybe you could request it in one of the projects’ bug trackers?
[Empty line, I’m skill-issuing with the editor, it seems.]




*GParted can assign a new, randomly generated UUID (not sure why they’re calling it that and not GUID, but, whatever.)
GParted could also do the partition copying for you, though it doesn’t have any facility to do the verification. If you don’t mind the superfluous read, just open GParted, find your source partition, right click, ‘copy’, then find some unallocated space on the target disk (or make some) and ‘paste’ into that (again from the right-click menu). Apply your changes (GParted staples them by default), when all done, you should have block devices for those partitions (note their names in GParted), then run your chosen checksumming program on those two block devices and see if the results match. (Say, md5sum -b /dev/sdc3 /dev/sdd1.)

 

[nageme]

@NoLoihi
See, too many gotchas. When doing low-level disk operations I like having a unified tool that makes sure everything fits together.

Regarding GParted, as far as I know, it only does filesystem-aware smart cloning, not sector/cluster-based. Unless there's a secret way to force it.

If you mean GPT means GUIDs, since it's not UPT... That makes sense. Though, if you really want to find a reason why it's still okay, while the UEFI spec calls it GUID and names the datatype EFI_GUID, some places in the doc (not necessarily the ones talking about GPT) link EFI_GUID with RFC 4122. That RFC is about UUIDs, but it says in the intro "also known as GUIDs".

BTW, some UEFI structures include the interestingly named field UniquePartitionGUID.

It will verify a sector write, but there isnt going to be any data integrity involved. You only get into that if you are pulling and saving images.

I'm thinking direct, not going thru an intermediate image. Though if that's what it takes.
Though people mentioned Clonezilla can actually verify. I'll check the Advanced Mode.

It's verifying any backed up files against their original MD5 hash. If you are doing a partition or whole disk image it would check each and every file within those against their original.

Any log or GUI indications that that's what it does?
Though going file-based will ignore any non-file data/structures, and it also might be very inefficient.

 

[evernessince]

Any log or GUI indications that that's what it does?
Though going file-based will ignore any non-file data/structures, and it also might be very inefficient.

Actually scratch my recommendation of Macrium. Just realized they went subscription only and I cannot condone having to pay for the software every year.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Can anyone suggest an app that can clone partitions but also verify the copy?
Preferably something that clones sector-based (or used clusters), and not something overly "smart" that digs too much into the filesystem.

There are a number of good suggestions above.

I personally use AOMEI Partition Assistant. It has a Disk/Partition copy function that can make a 1to1 copy and it verifies data as it goes. The free version is all you need though they do have a paid Pro version.

Free Partition Manager for Windows PC-AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a free partition manager that can help users to safely and easily manage disk partitions on Windows 11/10/8/7.

www.aomeitech.com

Macrium is good too, but only has a 30trial.
https://www.macrium.com/products/home

If you want something that has an easy to use bootable live-drive environment, Gparted is most excellent!
Free and open source and has excellent drive & partition copy functions built in as well.

GParted -- A free application for graphically managing disk device partitions

gparted.org

Even though it's Linux based, it works with Windows & Mac partitions flawlessly.

 

[nageme]

AOMEI Partition Assistant. It has a Disk/Partition copy function that can make a 1to1 copy and it verifies data as it goes.

Where is it enabled, and how does it work in practice?
(Their site doesn't say much.)

Actually scratch my recommendation of Macrium. Just realized they went subscription only and I cannot condone having to pay for the software every year.

Indeed annoying. If old-style versions no longer available.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Where is it enabled, and how does it work in practice?

Verification is enabled automatically as a part of the copy process. It copies a sector, then verifies it. If the verify fails, it tries again and re-verifies. If it fails 3 verify's in a row it halts and prompts the user. It can't be disabled.