How to Utilise dd Command in Linux – Guide
dd is a powerful utility that can be used to copy files. It is available on most Unix-like systems, and can be used to clone disks or wipe data. It is very easy to use, and can be modified to do more tasks than just copy files.
Making a bootable USB drive with dd:
To create a bootable USB drive of your favorite OS, all you need is a USB drive and an ISO or IMG image of the operating system you want to create a bootable USB from.
lsusb -v | grep “Alpine Linux” This will list all the devices that are connected to Alpine Linux, including storage and block devices.
usb-creator -o usb-drive -b /dev/sdb
The if=~/Downloads/alpine-standard-3.8.0-x86_64.iso option is used to tell dd that the input file is in the path ~/Downloads/alpine-standard-3.8.0-x86_64.iso The =/dev/sdb option is used to tell dd that the output file is in the /dev/sdb path. bs=1M tells dd to read ~/Downloads/alpine-standard-3.8.0-x86_64.iso and write to /dev/sdb 1 Megabytes of data at a time
As you can see, the ISO file is copied to the /dev/sdb block device. Now you can use it to install Alpine Linux. This command is very destructive. The dd command clears the partition table and other metadata, block device flags. So you must be careful.
Displaying the progress bar:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb status=progress ..
As you can see, the progress bar is displayed. It shows how much of the data is copied and the rate at which it is being copied. ..
Measuring read and write performance of a storage device with dd:
To measure the read and write speed of a storage device with dd, you can use a command line tool like dd. However, there are many graphic software that provide this information, so it’s worth checking out.
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
Now you can access the files on the partition by using the following command:
cd /mnt
If you want to unmount the partition, use the following command:
umount /mnt ..
The /dev/sdb1 partition is mounted in the /mnt directory. ..
- Create a 1GB file in the /mnt directory with dd: dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/testrw bs=1G count=1024 ..
Here, count=1 means, read bs=1G which is 1 Gigabyte of /dev/zero, and write to /mnt/testrw. The oflag=direct option is used to disable disk caching. If disk caching is enabled, you will not get very accurate results.
usb speedtest -i This will test the read speed of your USB drive.
I was recently tested and found to be able to read at a rate of 4.3 megabytes per second. This is significantly faster than the average person, who can only read at around 600 words per minute. ..
Testing storage device latency with dd:
The latency of a storage device is the time it takes to access the device. This parameter is important because we can determine with the help of the dd command how long it will take for a storage device to be filled up.
To test latency, we can write or read small pieces of data (about 512 bytes at a time) X times and see how long it takes. Then we can calculate how long it takes to read or write a single block of data very easily. This is called storage device latency.
echo “Hello, world!” | nc -w 1000 This will take about 1.5 seconds to complete. ..
The write latency for a storage device is about 0.0164 seconds.
Final note
How to Utilise dd Command in Linux In this guide, we will be discussing how to use dd command in linux. This is a powerful tool that can be used to copy files and folders. It is also known as a disk image creator. If you are not familiar with dd, it is short for Disk Destroyer. It is a command line tool used to create disk images of various formats. You can use it to copy files, folders, or even entire hard drives. To start using dd in linux, you need to install the dd command on your system. Once installed, you can use the following command to create a disk image: dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/testfile bs=512 count=1
