On 04/09/2019 16.12, ToddAndMargo via users wrote:
On 9/3/19 10:59 PM, John Harris wrote:
On Tuesday, September 3, 2019 10:03:21 PM MST ToddAndMargo via users wrote:
Hi All,
I have a flash drive with about four partitions on is. Lets call it /dev/sdc.
Can I tar sdc or am I stuck with tarring the partitions?
Any drawback to this?
If you were to `tar` it, you'd be making an archive with a single file named 'sdc'. I suggest you do this:
dd if=/dev/sdc of=/path/to/file gzip /path/to/file
(Feel free to use some other software for compression)
This looks like what I want. Thank you!
Is there a way to pipe the dd into the gzip file?
As for your question (but see later), yes: dd if=/dev/sdc | gzip >file.gz but - gzip may not be the most suitable compression - to improve the compression, mount each partition and create a large file of zeroes sudo mount /dev/sdXn /path/to/mountPoint dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/mountPoint/zero rm /path/to/mountPoint/zero sudo umount /path/to/mountPoint Now you can do the dd and expect a smaller gz file.
However, the most important question that needs answering is this: What is the purpose of this exercise? - is this for backup - not expecting to read it again. dd is OK but clonezilla will do a better job (no need to do the zero thing) - is this to allow transferring the data to another USB disk clonezilla is your friend again - will you need regular access to individual files on these partitions? mount each partition and copy (rsync) the content to where you want it
HTH