Hi, Experts !
I've met a following challenge:
I have a unix machine, and I need to take a backup of its disk in order to use it for staging of the next machine in the future. But I try to find some information on how it is best to do it.
The spare disk which I have is new and not formatted, but have the same size as the reference disk .
Old machine runs Solaris 8, but the new one will run Solaris 9.
So my questions are:
1). Is there any automatic function to take a "mirror" of the existing disk without formatting it first ?
2). If I need to format the disk, do I use the Solaris 9 installation disk or Solaris 8. Or don't I need the disk at all ? what are the recommendations ?
3). If formatting needed and step 2 is performed, what is the best way to copy the whole disk to the new disk ?
4). Taken that I need to use Solaris 8 to take the backup: shall I upgrade the OS to Solaris 9 later, and shall the new machine work fine in this case ?
Please comment if I am wrong in any statement.
Would appreciate any help, because I am stuck !
Best regards,
Dennis