I ran into all sorts of problems trying to do what is described here. Somewhere around problem 67,405,940, I decided to create a full size image then compress to .xz. All the backups are .xz. A little extra processing time but 16 GB becomes 2.5 GB and the compress can run in the background while I do something interesting.
There is a problem restoring to a smaller storage device. If your "4TB" SSD is 3.9 TB and you have to restore an image from it to a 3.85 TB SSD, you still need a way to shrink the partition. One trick is to shrink the last partition on the source disk using Gparted from a live boot then create an image and test pishrink etc. Or run the pishrink on an older OS. Boot from an old microSD card then shrink.
Another way is to use the SD card copier. If your system runs from 128 GB SSD and uses only 25 GB, you can copy to a 32 GB microSD. This does not work when you want to shrink a 64 GB SSD with 35 GB used on to a 32 GB card.
There is a problem restoring to a smaller storage device. If your "4TB" SSD is 3.9 TB and you have to restore an image from it to a 3.85 TB SSD, you still need a way to shrink the partition. One trick is to shrink the last partition on the source disk using Gparted from a live boot then create an image and test pishrink etc. Or run the pishrink on an older OS. Boot from an old microSD card then shrink.
Another way is to use the SD card copier. If your system runs from 128 GB SSD and uses only 25 GB, you can copy to a 32 GB microSD. This does not work when you want to shrink a 64 GB SSD with 35 GB used on to a 32 GB card.
Statistics: Posted by peterlite — Mon Mar 17, 2025 8:01 am