Hello,

So I can use this command
dd if=/dev/sdx of=/path/to/image bs=1M

to take a full backup of the SD card that has the OS installed for my raspberry pi.
What I need help with is:

How do I find out what /dev/sdx (location of SD card) actually is?
Where would be the best place to backup to - /path/to/image - the SD card is 8gb so I can just write it back to itself in a way.
I would like to CRON it, I assume once I get the line correct and confirm its working, I can just CRONTAB that line?

Linux very new to me, would appreciate the help.
Cheers

Originally Posted by Shindig

Hello,

So I can use this command
dd if=/dev/sdx of=/path/to/image bs=1M

to take a full backup of the SD card that has the OS installed for my raspberry pi.
What I need help with is:

How do I find out what /dev/sdx (location of SD card) actually is?
Where would be the best place to backup to - /path/to/image - the SD card is 8gb so I can just write it back to itself in a way.
I would like to CRON it, I assume once I get the line correct and confirm its working, I can just CRONTAB that line?

Linux very new to me, would appreciate the help.
Cheers

use dmesg or sudo fdisk -l to get info on your attached storage. sd card will probably be /dev/sdb
also you can look in /var/log/messages to find out the sdcard dev name

also be careful with dd command when selecting the output device you want to backup to

Would it not be better to back it up to another card?

If I could CRON it to a windows share that would be ace.
I assume I have to mount a windows share first?

Yes, then you can add the Windows share to fstab and off you go

You'll have to install the Samba client obs...

I gave up when getting to the windows share side of it... jee its tought stuff!
Anyway I grabbed this util and popped the SD card hosting the OS in my laptop. Took an image of it... and did a restore.
I appreciate you get downtime but it works as a one off once a month or so.

HDDGURU: HDD Raw Copy Tool

This is what I did to back-up my card after setting things up, I used linux.

First you can even create swap if you want on your card before backing -up, I used gprated to create linux-swap space on the free space on the card, then.

Code:

Only registered members can view code.

I know this is an old post but people (like me ) are still getting these RPi's you can use win32diskimager to read the sdcard onto a windows computer(backup) and then write it to another card or even the same card it is the recommended way to write the image to a sdcard by the RPi forums