Partclone as faster dd to image a whole system?

[Gilles]

Hello,

I'd like to image the USB key drive that holds the Debian that runs an appliance, so that when it dies, I can simply restore the image to a new drive, and be back in business in a few minutes.

I gave dd¤ a try, but 1) it's very slow, and 2) it saves even empty blocks, so that a 32GB drive that only holds 1GB still turns into a 32GB image file.

Can Partclone image a whole drive to a single file, including the partition table¤¤, or does it only support imaging a single partition?

Thank you.

¤ dd if=/dev/sdc of=boot.image.dd conv=notrunc status=progress

¤¤ FWIW, here's how the USB key drive is partitioned:
Disk /dev/sda: 28.9 GiB, 31024349184 bytes, 60594432 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x3e31e9ce

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 499711 497664 243M 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 499712 59590655 59090944 28.2G 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 59592702 60594175 1001474 489M 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 59592704 60594175 1001472 489M 82 Linux swap / Solaris

[Steven Shiau]

Partclone is the file system engine for Clonezilla, though partclone can be used separately.
It's recommended to use Clonezilla live for this purpose.
Please refer to these docs:
https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live-doc.php

Steven

[Gilles]

Thank you.