How to clone a drive using Ubuntu’s own built-in tools (no extra software)
If you want to clone a drive using Ubuntu’s own built-in tools (no extra software), the most reliable options are:
🧰 1. Using dd (built-in terminal tool)
This is the simplest way to clone a disk bit-for-bit — including bootloader, partitions, and file system.
Command structure:
sudo dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=64K status=progress
if=→ input file (the source drive)of=→ output file (the target drive)bs=64K→ block size (helps speed)status=progress→ shows progress as it runs
👉 Example:
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=64K status=progress
✅ Tips & Warnings:
- Double-check your drive letters with:
lsblk - Everything on the target drive will be overwritten.
- Both drives should be unmounted before cloning.
🧭 2. Using cp with partitions mounted (not full disk)
If you only want to copy files, not clone the entire disk structure:
sudo cp -a /mnt/source/. /mnt/target/
But this won’t copy bootloaders or partition tables — it’s just a file copy.
🪄 3. Optional (for partitions only): dd + fdisk
If you want to clone only a single partition instead of the whole drive:
sudo dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb1 bs=64K status=progress
If the target partition is larger, you can later expand it with:
sudo resize2fs /dev/sdb1
(works for ext2/3/4 file systems).
🧭 Check after cloning
Once cloning finishes, check:
sudo fdisk -l
You should see identical partitions and sizes on both drives.
To verify bit-for-bit:
sudo cmp /dev/sda /dev/sdb