dd

Convert and copy a file. More information: https://keith.github.io/xcode-man-pages/dd.1.html.

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

dd if=path/to/file.iso of=/dev/usb_drive status=progress

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

dd bs=4m conv=noerror if=/dev/source_drive of=/dev/dest_drive status=progress

• Generate a file with a specific number of random bytes by using kernel random driver:

dd bs=100 count=1 if=/dev/urandom of=path/to/random_file

• Benchmark the write performance of a disk:

dd bs=1024 count=1000000 if=/dev/zero of=path/to/1GB_file

• Create a system backup, save it into an IMG file (can be restored later by swapping if and of), and show the progress:

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

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

kill -USR1 $(pgrep ^dd)