tldr/pages/common/dd.md

dd

Convert and copy a file. More information: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/dd.

• Make a bootable USB drive from an isohybrid file (such like archlinux-xxx.iso) and show the progress:

dd if={{file.iso}} of=/dev/{{usb_drive}} status=progress

• Clone a drive to another drive with 4 MiB block, ignore error and show progress:

dd if=/dev/{{source_drive}} of=/dev/{{dest_drive}} bs=4M conv=noerror status=progress

• Generate a file of 100 random bytes by using kernel random driver:

dd if=/dev/urandom of={{random_file}} bs=100 count=1

• Benchmark the write performance of a disk:

dd if=/dev/zero of={{file_1GB}} bs=1024 count=1000000

• Generate a system backup into an IMG file and show the progress:

dd if=/dev/{{drive_device}} of={{path/to/file.img}} status=progress

• Restore a drive from an IMG file and show the progress:

dd if={{path/to/file.img}} of=/dev/{{drive_device}} status=progress

• Check progress of an ongoing dd operation (Run this command from another shell):

kill -USR1 $(pgrep ^dd)