Tutorial: cloning your Linux Lite drive using the 'dd' command.

[m654321]

If I copy from my working system card to a partition on a hard disk, does the partition size have to be the same size as the card?
E.g. 32GB sdhc  copied to 500GB HDD, do I have to create a 32GB partition on the HDD or can I just 'dd' without worrying about the HDD size? I'm confused by conflicting info from google.

Thanks for your question justme2.
No, the HDD partition size doesn't have to be the same size as the card (i.e. 32GB), unless the card has, or almost has, 32GB of written space on it.

The partition on the 500GB HDD that you're cloning to,  must either be the same size or larger (never smaller) than the written space you're cloning from on your 32GB SDHC.

Let's take a hypothetical example ...

The HDD could have say just a single partition spanning the whole drive.  If  the written space on your SDHC only takes up  say 20 out of the 32GB, then it will take up 20GB on the HDD following cloning, with 480 GB either left unused or, if your HDD is unformatted, then the remaining 480GB will be left as unallocated space.

Using the same example above, you could of course clone the 20GB of written space on your SDHC, to a partition smaller than 500GB on your HDD. The important thing here is  that the partition you're cloning to is  at least the same size or larger than 20GB. Just because the device you're cloning from has a 32GB capacity, doesn' t mean your partition on the HDD has to be 32GB. 

The key thing is that the size of the written space that you're copying from your SDHC will determine the minimum size  needed for the partition receiving the cloned copy on your HDD.

Hope this helps 

Mike