Cloning a 750gb Time Machine - takes a long time

[gadgetdoctor]

Just for information (unless Dave tells us there is something odd going on here).

I'm presently 25hrs 43 minutes in to copying about 750GB of Time Machine data from one FW400 drive to a FW800 drive.

And this is the smart update! So far it's evaluated 624GB, found that 1,908GB is up to date (got to love those hard links) and copied 195MB.

The real killer I suspect is the number of files. 24 Million to do and 16 Million done so far.

I suspect I have a few more hours to run.

[dnanian]

Evaluating and recreating gadzillions of hard links and files (twice) can take a long time, unfortunately...

[gadgetdoctor]

Evaluating and recreating gadzillions of hard links and files (twice) can take a long time, unfortunately...

Now at 24 hrs + 7hrs 30 mins ....

only 6 million files of the 24 mil left. :-) Another night I think.

Is there a better way to make a backup clone of 1 year's worth of time machine data?

[dnanian]

You could make a low-level (sector) copy...

[gadgetdoctor]

What software would I need to do that? The disks are not the same type. Would PC software like ghost or acronis work if I hooked the drives up to a PC?

[dnanian]

Disk Utility? The Restore tab might work.