|
From: Szakacsits S. <sz...@si...> - 2003-04-10 12:11:59
|
On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Anton Altaparmakov wrote: > I agree that a simple image format is a good idea but I also think that > being able to create a simple sparse file for debugging purposes > especially a metadata only file is extremely valuable, too. If we can Yes, the problem developers' and imaging users' need/requirements differ. > combine the two utilities that would probably be the best thing. My > suggestion would be to create one utility rather than two different ones I'd also like but I'm afraid we must distinguish them. I renamed my ntfsimage to ntfsdump, so it will be easier to refer to them. At least temporarily and we can see later on if merge make sense or not. ntfsdump really looks like a developer tool. I plan a lot of options to control what metadata to be save or dropped. These could just confuse users. These are needed to protect users' private info (I wiped all user data except filenames but I plan later on that one as well, maybe) and balance between saved metadata information and the dumped/compressed sized for fast/easy transfer over network even if the volume is 200 GB. More later. Also confusing how to restore. With ntfsdump it's only ntfsdump. With ntfsimage it's ntfsimage/restoreimage. And if combined? Uhmm. I think ntfsdump would be useful for developers. Telling the user, e.g. "please do this and send the foo.tar.bz2 file" ntfsdump -maQpLD -o foo device; tar -Scjf foo.tar.bz2 foo It's just an extra bonus it can be also used as a backup tool [hell, I definitely don't want to write/maintain a full featured imaging tool ;)]. And users with real imaging need can use ntfsimage and restoreimage. Easy usage. Make the image with ntfsimage, restore it with restoreimage (ntfsrestore could be a hard link ...) > Yes, of course. But ideally I would like to see the two functionalities in > one rather than having two separate imaging programs, one for sparse > files and one for custom image format... I think we shouldn't confuse users with this sparse thing. If we do sparse it should be transparent. But we will see ... > > - restoreimage should be able to create the image as a sparse file. I > > don't think this would be a big issue. > I think this is the wrong level. I really don't want to have to create an > image to be able to create a sparse file from that, that would take twice > the space on disk and twice the time. Not worth it IMHO. True. Space is pretty important for me since I don't have much. The time is also :) I don't have much from that either :) > Much better to have the imaging program do it immediately on image > creation. It would also be really nice if on restore the imaging > program can take the sparse file and use that to restore the data to > the partition. That allows for example to run ntfsck (that will one day > be written) and then to just restore the metadata to the old state > quickly by restoring the sparse image with the metadata only option > enabled. I can also do _now_ ntfsdump -o foo device_big ntfsresize foo ntfsdump -o device_small foo With ntfsimages/restoreimage it can't be done. Both methods has advantages and disadvantages. Szaka |
