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Can you resize / fill available disk space when cloning a disk with a ext4 partition?

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I don't own this product yet, so I'm trying to figure out if it can do what I want. I want to be able to clone a disk with Ubuntu on it and during the clone it will auto resize the partition Ubuntu is on to fill the available space on the drive it's being cloned to if it's bigger than the size of the drive Ubuntu is installed on. I know you can clone a disk with Ubuntu, but the important part is doing the resize of the partition Ubuntu is on during the clone process. Is it possible?

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Posts: 2
Comments: 1727

Hello!

Welcome to the forum!

By default, when cloning to a new disk of a different size, the program resizes the cloned partitions proportionally.

Source disk volumes can be cloned to the target disk "as is" or resized proportionally. It is possible to clone a larger disk to a smaller one, provided that the smaller hard disk has enough capacity to fit the contents of the larger disk.

Source and target disks must have an equal logical sector size. Cloning to a disk with a different logical sector size is not supported.

Please refer to the following user guide with the following KB: https://kb.acronis.com/content/56634.

Also, check the supported file systems: https://kb.acronis.com/content/1538.

Note that Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office doesn't support the Linux OS. If you want to install the program there, that's not possible.

Thanks in advance!

Do not clone disks as if anything goes wrong. You could destroy data on the source drive, leaving you with a massie headache by trying to fix issues (if it's even possible). 

Creating / restoring images is safer and Acronis (including other companies) should be telling people to make images before attempting any drive cloning as a safety net, however they never do and some people do end up getting royally screwed over when cloning fails on them.

Joseph, the ACPHO User Guide does have the following warning / recommendation (the same as the guides for earlier versions had too).

We strongly recommend that you create a backup of the entire original disk as a safety precaution. It could be your data saver if something goes wrong with your original hard disk during cloning. For information on how to create such a backup, see Backing up partitions and disks. After creating the backup, make sure that you validate it.

Unfortunately Acronis have not been consistent in offering the above warning / recommendation, so the KB document referenced earlier does not say the same!

Tom, welcome to these public User Forums.

I have never used Acronis to clone any Linux ext4 drives but have used it to make disk backups which can then be restored to a different disk drive by booting the system using Acronis bootable rescue media.  If your Ubuntu system is using a different file system (not using ext2 ext3 or ext4), then it is unlikely that cloning would work leaving only the option to use Backup & Recovery instead.

You could install TimeShift on Ubuntu and make your own full backup using that tool, then restore that to a new larger drive, or use Clonezilla for doing this migration.

As soon as the user selects "clone disk" the software should there and then advise people to create a full image before proceeding..........Stating this somewhere deep in a user guide isn't going to help when someone new to cloning takes their gamble as everyone everywhere makes out cloning is basically fool proof (like many Youtube videos regarding cloning)

Ken, Joseph,

Please see forum topic: [IMPORTANT] CLONING - How NOT to do this - which was written back in 2017 after dealing with many cloning issues in the forums.