MX Linux Forum

Hello everyone,
I would like to migrate my current installation of MX18 from one SSD to another (different brand and size).
What would be the best approach? Would MX Snapshot do the job? I would like to ideally keep everything as-is.

Thanks for any hints.

Best regards, Jiri

edit: We're talking about mSata SSDs so I can't (easily) make both of them running at the same time.

WarhawkCZ wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:32 pm Hello everyone,
I would like to migrate my current installation of MX18 from one SSD to another (different brand and size).
What would be the best approach? Would MX Snapshot do the job? I would like to ideally keep everything as-is.

Thanks for any hints.

Best regards, Jiri

edit: We're talking about mSata SSDs so I can't (easily) make both of them running at the same time.

I don't know about mSata SSDs. My question is can you see them when booting from a live-usb? And how is your system formatted? UEFI? Root size? Home and other partitions etc?

Snapshot works well for this...

The reason I asked is I just did this going from a 120G to a 500G ssd. Mine was UEFI and I did this using Gpart to copy each partition from the 120G to the 500G. I did this one partition at a time since after each one except for the esp, I resized them to a larger size after each copy. This kept all UUID numbers the same so no changes on anything. Just remove the 120g drive and it rebooted just like it was still the 120G drive. Later I cleared the 120G.

Don't know if you can do this with your setup. Just a thought.

Snapshot would work, make sure you copy VirtualBox images if you have installed, snapshot excludes those by default.

Another way would be just to boot to Live USB copy all the stuff from one drive to another (create similar partitions and use rsync to sync all the files) then for a good measure reinstall GRUB and fix /etc/fstab to reflect the changes.

WarhawkCZ wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:32 pm Hello everyone,
I would like to migrate my current installation of MX18 from one SSD to another (different brand and size).
What would be the best approach? Would MX Snapshot do the job? I would like to ideally keep everything as-is.

Thanks for any hints.

Best regards, Jiri

edit: We're talking about mSata SSDs so I can't (easily) make both of them running at the same time.

Since you can't have both SSDs running at once you're either going to need to back up the contents of your home directory to an (internal or external) hard drive (using Lucky Backup or Grsync) and make a personal snapshot that excludes those directories, or if you have a large-capacity USB stick make a personal snapshot that includes the directories inside of home, but only if you don't have a lot of personal data files or big files. Either way, snapshot will do what you want: just burn the snapshot's ISO to your USB stick, change your SSDs, boot from the USB and install your own MX on the new SSD, then restore your personal data.

Or you could use clonezilla. Boot a Live MX and install clonezilla. If possible, connect new ssd via USB or other means, whatever is available, fire up clonezilla and do a disk to disk clone.

Clonezilla easily and reliably takes care of all steps and will not allow cloning a larger disk to a smaller, so it is safe in this instance. If you can not have both ssd disks available simultaneously, do an image clone to an ext4 formatted thumb drive (not preferred) or external hard disk (best option) first, then dump it back to the new SSD when installed.

Double up

Thank you everyone, I will try the snapshot feature first. It is for a collectible Thinkpad x301 (my portable typewriter) and the amount of home data is super small. I'll report back.

WarhawkCZ wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:38 am Thank you everyone, I will try the snapshot feature first. It is for a collectible Thinkpad x301 (my portable typewriter) and the amount of home data is super small. I'll report back.

In that case, and if your USB stick is 8GB or larger, a simple personal snapshot with no directories in /home excluded will probably do everything that you need. Create the snapshot ISO (by default they get stored in /home/snapshot), right-click on the md5 and sha512 files and select "Check data integrity" and if that says "OK" burn it to your USB stick using MX Live USB Maker, boot from the USB just to check that it includes your personal setup, power off and swap out the SSDs, boot from the USB again, and install to the new bigger SSD. VIola!