Cloning a Laptop over NVMe TCP (copyninja.in)

Article summary

The article describes a process of cloning a laptop's disk over NVMe TCP, allowing the author to set up a new laptop with the same configuration as the old one. The process involves exporting the disk using NVMe over TCP, copying the disk to the new laptop, and then resizing the partition and LUKS container. This method saves time and effort compared to setting up the new laptop from scratch. The author notes that this process is useful for duplicating a laptop's configuration, but may not be necessary for everyone.

Main themes

• NVMe over TCP
• Disk cloning
• Laptop setup
• Linux configuration
• Storage networking

What commenters say

• Using NVMe/TCP for disk cloning is unnecessary and more complex than simply using dd and netcat, which can achieve the same result with fewer moving parts.
• The use of dd for disk copying can be improved with additional flags, such as iflag=fullblock, to ensure data integrity and prevent corruption.
• NVMe/TCP is a more robust and reliable method for disk cloning, especially in data center environments, due to its ability to verify image integrity and write integrity.
• The performance benefits of using NVMe/TCP for disk cloning are negligible, as the bottleneck is typically the network connection rather than the disk itself.
• Using O_DIRECT with dd can actually degrade performance in certain scenarios, and it is not necessary for achieving good write speeds.
• There are alternative methods for verifying data integrity during disk cloning, such as using sha1sum on each end, which can be just as effective as NVMe/TCP's built-in verification.