# Best way to backup/ restore RPi SD-Card?

**URL:** https://discourse.nodered.org/t/best-way-to-backup-restore-rpi-sd-card/57539
**Category:** Hardware
**Created:** [31 January 2022 09:19 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/best-way-to-backup-restore-rpi-sd-card/57539 "2022-01-31T09:19:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![nico25](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@nico25](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/nico25)
#### Post date: [31 January 2022 09:19 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/best-way-to-backup-restore-rpi-sd-card/57539/1 "2022-01-31T09:19:17Z")

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I am using a 32GB SD-Card for my Raspberry. Creating backups and resorting them using Win32DiskImager works fine. If I want to clone that image to a different SD-Card it doesn´t necessarily  
have the same amount of sectors, resulting in a warning message when trying to do so with Win32DiskImager.

![grafik](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/3X/1/6/1603dcb9406eed641ba127f7bd99863940b1e427.png)

Can you recommend other backup tools, which create an image in dependence of the actual used disk space?  
What do you use?

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### Author: ![cymplecy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/cymplecy/32/2773_2.png) [@cymplecy](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/cymplecy)
#### Post date: [31 January 2022 09:36 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/best-way-to-backup-restore-rpi-sd-card/57539/2 "2022-01-31T09:36:42Z")

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The Raspberry Pi forums are the place to ask about this 🙂

Its a long subject 🙂

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### Author: ![Colin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/colin/32/17040_2.png) [@Colin](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Colin)
#### Post date: [31 January 2022 10:00 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/best-way-to-backup-restore-rpi-sd-card/57539/3 "2022-01-31T10:00:17Z")

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Not all SD cards that are nominally the same size (16GB for example) are actually exactly the same size. It looks rather as if the one you took the image from is slightly larger than the one you are trying to restore to. I avoid this by shrinking the partition size on the SD card a bit (say to 15.5GB) before imaging it. I use gparted for shinking it and clonezilla for imaging. But as @cymplecy says you should ask on a Pi forum (or google).

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### Author: ![nico25](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@nico25](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/nico25)
#### Post date: [31 January 2022 11:47 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/best-way-to-backup-restore-rpi-sd-card/57539/4 "2022-01-31T11:47:48Z")

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Shrinking the partition did the trick 👍. I know this was a little offtopic. Will go to Raspberry forums in the future 😀

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### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/1X/d073cd938eafa2e558d7c2cd59003b3ef4963033.png) [@system](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [14 February 2022 11:47 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/best-way-to-backup-restore-rpi-sd-card/57539/5 "2022-02-14T11:47:49Z")

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