dd
Command-line utility for Unix and Unix-like operating systems to convert and copy a file.
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Linux
- BSD
...
dd, that stands for ‘data duplicator’, is a command-line utility for Unix mainly used for copying and converting data.
This tool can be used for:
• Backing up and restoring an entire hard drive or a partition.
• Copy regions of raw device files like backing up MBR (master boot record).
• Converting data formats like ASCII to EBCDIC.
• Converting lowercase to uppercase and vice versa.
• Creating files with fixed size.
This tool can be used for:
• Backing up and restoring an entire hard drive or a partition.
• Copy regions of raw device files like backing up MBR (master boot record).
• Converting data formats like ASCII to EBCDIC.
• Converting lowercase to uppercase and vice versa.
• Creating files with fixed size.
Show full description ▾
Features Vote on or suggest new features
Comments and Reviews Post a comment / reviewSort: relevance • date
Categories
OS & Utilities • Backup & Sync • CD/DVD Tools • Security & PrivacyTags
- drive-imaging
- partition-backup
- disk-dumper
- disc-dump
- command-line-interface
- disk-dump
- disk-dumping
- bsd-general-command
- command-line-interface
- bsd-general-commands
- ISO Creators
- unix-built-in
- disc-dumper
- backup-and-restore
- disk-dumpers
- disc-dumping
- mbr-recovery
- hard-disk-backup
- diskdump
- gnu-coreutils
- disc-dumpers
- command-line-interface
- backup-hard-drive
Lists containing dd
No screenshots yet
dd
Summary and Relevance
Our users have written 3 comments and reviews about dd, and it has gotten 75 likes
- Open Source and Free product.
- Average rating of 5
- 23 alternatives listed
Popular alternatives
View alldd was added to AlternativeTo by on Aug 26, 2016 and this page was last updated Nov 18, 2020. dd is sometimes referred to as Data Definition, Disk Dump.
Fantastic because it's able to copy bytes directly from a larger drive onto a smaller drive (until reaching the end of the smaller drive of course). This allows setting up a partition table that will fit on the smaller drive, on the larger drive, then copying it.
It just works. GUI utilities for writing ISO files (for example) are just not required and take longer to use than a simple commandline utility.
'dd' is a powerful command-line program that's been a staple of UNIX operating systems since the 1980s.
Pros:
man dd
Cons:
mkdir -p
, so the option syntax is weirdfdisk -l /dev/sda
to check your device node, becausedd if=my_linux.iso of=/dev/sda
could end up overwriting an important disk!Tips:
bs=1M
to set a 1 megabyte block size and see if it speeds up your transfer!dd
to print statisticsFor users new to 'dd' this may all seem overwhelming. If all you're looking to do is flash a Linux ISO image onto a USB stick and move on with your life then there are definitely much easier applications.
But there is a reason dd has been around for so many decades. It's simply extremely powerful, versatile and ubiquitous.