[NTLUG:Discuss] backing up a full disk image to external disk

[Ed Leach]

After some additional hunting around I found this:

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Dd ---

Creating a hard drive backup image

# dd if=/dev/hda | gzip > /mnt/hdb1/system_drive_backup.img.gz

Here dd is making an image of the first harddrive, and piping it through 
the gzip compression program. The compressed image is then placed in a 
file on a seperate drive. To reverse the process:

# gzip -dc /mnt/hdb1/system_drive_backup.img.gz | dd of=/dev/hda

Here, gzip is decompressing (the -d switch) the file, sending the 
results to stdout (the -c switch), which are piped to dd, and then 
written to /dev/hda.

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I think this is what I'm looking for, although zipping 80 gigs might 
keep it busy for awhile.