dd

alllinuxmacos

Convert and copy a file.

Examples (5)

Make a bootable USB drive from an isohybrid file (such as `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 MiB block size and flush writes before the command terminates

dd bs=4194304 conv=fsync if=/dev/source_drive of=/dev/dest_drive

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 sequential write performance of a disk

dd bs=1024 count=1000000 if=/dev/zero of=path/to/file_1GB

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