I would like to use rsync to maintain a backup a block-device (the complete harddisk /dev/hda, (5G)) from my laptop to my server at home, using a 100MBit/s-Link. On the server the contents of the block-device should be a regular file shared via rsync, which resides on a much bigger Disk (40G). First of all do you think this is a good idea? Is it possible to use rsync for that purpose? I ask because I couldn't directly rsync /dev/hda up to the server using something like "rsync /dev/hda server::backup/laptop_backup" or "rsync -D /dev/hda server::backup/laptop_backup" because rsync tried to copy the device-file instead of the device-contents. Are there any parameters or something like that to copy the CONTENTS of a block-device instead of the DEVICE-FILE? Is it maybe possible to let rsync read from a filestream or something, so I could do something like "cat /dev/hda | rsync ...". Thanks in advance! Richard
