Re: Data migration for replacing HDD with SSD - suggestions?

[Temlakos <temlakos@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 12/16/2017 10:13 AM, fred roller wrote:

[snip]

| I now ask the community for some suggestions.

I have done this type of set up on my systems before so what its worth I will share how I installed and where applicable, why.

| First, for partitioning:
| 
| 1. Should I even try to accept /automatic/ partitioning when the installer gets to that point?

No. In custom choose the 120 GB drive and auto choices may be fine but mine was to mount /boot, /swap, /tmp, and /.  For reasons related to HDD and rpm's that was the order; for SDD not so much. The second drive I mounted on /Crypt [or some other name you want].

What do you recommend as the sizes of partitions /boot and /tmp? Obviously "/" will take up "all the rest." /swap will take up 16 GB. I used 50 GB for /boot. But I never broke out /tmp as a separate partition.

| 2. Is 120 GB large enough for the information on the other directories besides /home?

Yes.  In my experience this has been more than enough.  /home was dealt with differently and the data ended up on /Crypt.

Good. Then I'll accept the 120 GB SSD as a good "system drive."

| 3. Should I create a separate /boot partition on the smaller SSD, and if so, how large should I make it?

Yes. See 1 above.  default size should be fine as it helps keep you honest and clean boot regularly.

I'll check out the default size--I think it was 50 GB to begin with. /tmp I don't know about.

| 4. How large should the swap partition be, and where should I put it? (That is, on the 120 GB or the 1 TB drive)?

I always went with 2x RAM.  See 1 above.

Agreed. I always did the same as well.

| 5. In general, should I place a partition for anything other than /home on the 1 TB SSD?

This will explain how/why I put /home on the 120 [smaller drive].  Through the use of hard/soft links to folders in /Crypt I connected the data files I wanted to preserve on /Crypt.  This use of links kept data writing to /Crypt and in so doing kept it separate from the OS drive.  So /home/user1/Documents -->/Crypt/user1/Documents, /home/user1/Pictures --> /Crypt/user1/Pictures, etc. etc.  This link was invisible to the user.  The data files from software likewise can be linked, /home/user1/.thunderbird --> /Crypt/user1/.thunderbird; which was great for recovering the mail client and other softeware.  This set-up was born of having put /home on /Crypt at first but if you migrated to a new distro or recovered from failure you tended to inherit artifacts which the new system choked on.  This process proved to be a cleaner foundation from which to recover/reinstall.  One had only reinstall a clean OS on the 120 then re-link, the data was never touched during the installation process.  Proved so effective that I preferred do clean installs from OS iteration to the next as opposed to upgrading.  There are some pros/cons to soft/hard links so research for the trade-offs.

Wouldn't mounting the big SSD as /home accomplish the same thing, i.e., keeping user data on a drive physically separate and apart from the system drive?

| Now, as regards data migration: I have three user accounts to migrate, plus another directory on /home called "lost and found."
| 
| 1. Should I even try to migrate "lost and found," and if so, how?

Can't give an honest answer, I never bothered.

I'll look through it, if I can get the permissions. Maybe "sudo" can get me in there.

| 2. I have at least two choices for migrating data and settings from the various user accounts--three for some of them.

Personally, I spent the $40 US on a external case for my old drive and moved piecemeal the items I wanted.  When done I did a DoD wipe of the drive and reformatted for an external B/U drive.

|     a. Connect the HDD to the SATA bus /after/ installing F27, and then force-copying everything out of each /home directory to its corresponding directory on the new configuration. (What command(s) would you recommend using, and with what options/switches/etc.?)

This will take with it artifacts which could cause issues IMO.

All right, then. I've rejected that plan.

|     b. Connect a large external HDD through a USB interface, transfer all the data to it before modifying the hardware, then re-transfer it to the system after installing the SSD's and F27.

Since you already have the two drives for the system an external case is a better option IMO.  If you have spare hardware then you could mount the drive in a separate system and you have the beginnings of a NAS but that is another project.  An external case would be the path of least resistance here IMO.

I can appreciate that up to a point. But for about $110 US plus tax, I just ordered a 4 TB USB portable HDD. That I plan to use as a backup for this system and possibly this and a Windows system. So now my plan is to back up my user data and key user application configuration files to this external HDD (Western Digital Passport Ultra, for anyone keeping score on vendors), and then modify the hardware.

|     c. Migrate the data to its "temporary refuge" over a Samba network (possibly do-able for at least one account, and that's the biggest account) and then re-migrate to the new system?

Unless you are integrating with windows, I don't see the need for Samba, Linux has several protocols to serve this capacity.  My fav is sftp on the internal network as it uses the users' existing credentials.

Well, I wouldn't say I'm "integrating" with Windows--I'm not sure what you mean by that. But in any case I've already figured out that using a portable HDD for backup is the way forward. Particularly since portable HDD's give so much more bang for the buck than they once did.

| Which choice would you recommend?

| 3. Is it worth migrating every single hidden file or folder? Or should I select only those folders that I know contain customization, account, or similar settings, plus my saved documents/pictures/music/videos, and migrate those?

Hopefully the above answered this question.  While seems a bit to do, the long term benefits proved this method was worth the trouble.  Hope it helps you a bit.

Thank you. Anyway, that's decided. The new hardware and accessories are either in my possession or on order.

Temlakos

_______________________________________________
users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx