Backing up SSD and pi4

[Doug64]

Hi,

I'm setting up my pi4 and have set it up to run from my SSD using the 'James Chambers' guide.

Now that I've got it all working I was wondering if there is a way to copy/back-up an image of the SSD & SD card to my Win10 laptop in case their is a problem.

Thanks

Doug

[Avocette]

Personally I have put aside the microSD card which I duplicated onto the SSD, and replaced it with another (smaller) microSD card as the daily workhorse in the RPi. It has the same contents in the cmdline.txt file in the boot partition (which you can edit under Win10 of course) as the ‘master’ microSD card. I suppose I have accepted that microSD cards are ‘temporary’ and that one day I may need to revisit the backup card and make a fresh SSD copy. Over the last six months I have got quite proficient at handling the RPi at this user level and accept that inevitably I will be updating software when new features are added or new ideas come along. Don’t forget RaspberryPi.org suggest that some day booting from SSD directly may become an option!

[Stuart1971]

Yes just use disc image software to create a back up image... I have done that.. 👍

https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

Edited May 4, 2020 by Stuart1971

[Stuart1971]

1 minute ago, Avocette said:

Personally I have put aside the microSD card which I duplicated onto the SSD, and replaced it with another (smaller) microSD card as the daily workhorse in the RPi. It has the same contents in the cmdline.txt file in the boot partition (which you can edit under Win10 of course) as the ‘master’ microSD card. I suppose I have accepted that microSD cards are ‘temporary’ and that one day I may need to revisit the backup card and make a fresh SSD copy. Over the last six months I have got quite proficient at handling the RPi at this user level and accept that inevitably I will be updating software when new features are added or new ideas come along. Don’t forget RaspberryPi.org suggest that some day booting from SSD directly may become an option!

It is an option on PI3 just waiting for USB boot on PI4 now.. 👍

[Doug64]

Thanks for the replies,

I'm very new to RPI, Linux etc however I'm using the lockdown to learn.

I've set up my pi4 with Astroberry on a 32gb Micro SD Card and once it was all set up I made a copy of the card onto another 32gb micro SD card so I have a backup.

Having done this I decided to try using an SSD that I had.  I used a 16gb micro SD card and followed the James Chambers Guide.  I got it all working and it appears to be much faster once it has booted us so I'm going to use my SSD going forwards.  I have however made a few mistakes whilst learning how to operate things which meant I had to re-do the SD card and SSD as I did not know how to back everything up and this is the reason for my question.

I am aware that the PI Foundation will update the software in the future so the PI4 boots from the USB 3.0, until then I'll keep using the SSD. 

I'll have a look at Win32 Imager etc and will get a back-up made

Doug