Hi all,
I currently have a Linux install from an old 256GB SATA SSD that I inherited. It was originally used as a swap drive in another person’s RAID server for about 7 years, then it was given to me, where I put my own Linux install that I have been running for about 5 years.
About a year ago, I acquired a new computer that has an NVMe SSD. It originally ran windows, but I dropped in my SSD with my Linux install, installed grub on the NVMe SSD, and booted to the old SSD.
I am mildly concerned about with this SSD being so old, it could crap out on me eventually. I remember that being a topic of discussion when SSDs first hit the market (i.e. when the one that I am using was made). So I was thinking of wiping the 1TB NVMe SSD that is currently unused in this computer and migrating my install to it. Now, I know I could copy my whole disk with dd, then expand the partition to make use of the space. But I was wondering if I could change the filesystem to something that had snapshots (such as btrfs).
Is it possible to do this, or to change filesystems do I need to create a new Linux install and copy all the files over that I want to keep?
Yeah, from the software’s point of view unless you need some extra rsync flags as some have pointed, you end up with an identical view of the files on there, they’ll be mounted exactly at the same places and everything. Just a different filesystem and drive behind it. People have been doing that for decades, before even Linux.
As long as all the attributes like user/group/mode and symlinks are preserved, most distros won’t notice a thing with that method. There’s no filesystem-specific special sauce to make it work or hidden flags or anything, even snaps and flatpaks.
This is not like Windows where your options are clone the partition or reinstall. Linux is a lot simpler and only cares that the files are where they should be with the right permissions.