Cloning an SSD

[etcetera]

I got a server with two identical SSDs, one has a good install of RHEL, other one does not. They are M.2 PCIe/NVMe.

The problem is that when I boot into Clonezilla, I do not know which device file correlates to which physical location. They are identical. does p0 mean it's my source and p1 my target or vice-versa?
I spent days polishing the install and would be an utter disaster if I cloned a bad device onto a good device.

I've though of removing one device, then see if I can still boot. That means I will have a 'good' disk in and 'bad disk' out. I can record the /dev/nvm* device name, except that won't work if I insert the second one, the device file name will shift.

I am thinking of attaching the 2nd 'bad' ssd via USB-based enclosure which will show up as /dev/sda or such and will be obviously different from the /dev/nvm*p* stuff.
The firing up clonezilla nd using /dev/nvme* as source and /dev/sda as target.

 

[Alexzee]

My thinking is to go your file system /dev/disk/byid.

All disk's are identified by a id #, by-label, or by-uuid. Though your disk's/SSD/M.2 may be identical I would surprised if the id's, label or uuid's are the same.

Clonezilla did not work well for me under Linux.

Our member @bob466 recommended Foxclone to me a while back and it booted from usb and worked.

https://linux.org/threads/important-things-to-know-when-creating-an-image-of-your-system.45663/page-2#post-210318

 

[Alexzee]

Other alternatives here:

8 Best Free Disk Cloning & Backup Tools for Linux (2024)

Disk cloning is the process of copying data from one hard disk to another. While you can perform this task using copy-and-paste methods.

www.tecmint.com

 

[etcetera]

I have Clonezilla working very well on Linux. I cloned from different SSDs. e.g. From Samsung 970 Plus to Samsung 980 Pro. They very obviously appear as such and it is impossible to mistaken them. My setup being such that 980 Pro is always the primary and 970 Plus is always the backup. (target)
Here I got dual 990 Pros to deal with.
The issue is sole user error.

I will check out the /dev/disk/*id.
This is RHEL by the way.

 

[APTI]

My thinking is to go your file system /dev/disk/byid.

All disk's are identified by a id #, by-label, or by-uuid. Though your disk's/SSD/M.2 may be identical I would surprised if the id's, label or uuid's are the same.

Clonezilla did not work well for me under Linux.

Our member @bob466 recommended Foxclone to me a while back and it booted from usb and worked.

https://linux.org/threads/important-things-to-know-when-creating-an-image-of-your-system.45663/page-2#post-210318

never had a problem with clonezilla, but you do have to know how to work it if the defaults do not work. I agree with try to see which uuid is the one you want to have as source, something has to differentiate them.