Moving and copying filesystems

At times you might want to move filesystems on your system. You might want to do this, for example, because you have more space available in slice A than in slice B, and you want to add data to the data already in slice B. Similarly, you might decide that by rearranging some of the filesystems within a single disk, you can make more efficient use of the total amount of space on that disk. Most of the time the source and destination slices are both filesystems, and you have to swap them.

To swap the contents of slices A and B, you must

1. Copy the contents of slice A on tape.

2. Remove the contents of slice A (which you just copied on tape).

3. Copy the contents of slice B on slice A.

4. Remove the contents of slice B (which you just copied on slice A).

5. Move the contents of the tape (created in step 1) to slice B.

Before you start moving the contents of disks and/or slices, be sure to back up both the source and destination filesystems. (For instructions, see Backup and Restore.)

To move a filesystem:

1. Copy the source filesystem to a new location (or ``destination''). See ``Step 1: copying the source filesystem''.

2. Remove the source filesystem from its original location. See ``Steps 2 and 3: Removing the source filesystem and editing vfstab''.

3. Edit the /etc/vfstab file. See ``Steps 2 and 3: Removing the source filesystem and editing vfstab''.