{"slug": "dd", "name": "dd", "category": "terminal", "category_name": "Terminal and shell", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 8, "warners": 1, "score": 3.545, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-11-24", "latest": "2026-10-07", "why": "Long live dd! Except every time I use it I am terrified I'll blow out the brains of the wrong device :/", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 3, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Long live dd! Except every time I use it I am terrified I'll blow out the brains of the wrong device :/", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/ricccrd/dd", "official_url": "https://github.com/ricccrd/dd", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["dd"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 799911920, "item_id": 49994495, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49994495", "by": "titzer", "date": "2026-10-07", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Long live dd! Except every time I use it I am terrified I'll blow out the brains of the wrong device :/", "excerpt": "Long live dd! Except every time I use it I am terrified I'll blow out the brains of the wrong device :/ Another example clown app: the MacOS downloads of TuxGuitar, a Java app, used to just ship as a zip with a big jar in it. Now it ships an entire Java Runtime environment specific to your processor architecture. It's 480MB. Derp.", "context": "", "use_case": "writing disk images", "switched_from": "", "story": "Shipping JPEG XL in Chrome"}, {"id": 782445104, "item_id": 48902819, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48902819", "by": "timc3", "date": "2026-07-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks great. Going to give it a try.", "excerpt": "This looks great. Going to give it a try.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)"}, {"id": 739855584, "item_id": 46240974, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46240974", "by": "jaredhallen", "date": "2025-12-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "But man, do I love me some dd.", "excerpt": "You know, this is true. And I've read any number of \"you should never use dd, use this instead\" articles over the years. But man, do I love me some dd.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools"}, {"id": 736688144, "item_id": 46043009, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46043009", "by": "fainpul", "date": "2025-11-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "On macOS / Linux you can use `dd` to \"copy\" everything from /dev/yourssd to /dev/null.", "excerpt": "On macOS / Linux you can use `dd` to \"copy\" everything from /dev/yourssd to /dev/null. Just be careful not to do it the other way! https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/dd.1.html I have no idea if forcing a read is good / the right way. I'm just answering how to do it.", "context": "", "use_case": "forcing a full disk read", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 742917825, "item_id": 46432364, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46432364", "by": "diarrhea", "date": "2025-12-30", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Then there's `dd`...", "excerpt": "I have trouble gauging the effects of `*`, aka \"will I cp/mv the dir or all contents of the dir\"? Then shell expansion getting in the way, like expanding it all (\"argument list too long\"). I try to use rsync when possible, where intermittent `.` in paths are relevant, as well as trailing slashes... and don't forget `-a`! Then I forget if those same things apply to cp/mv. Then I cp one directory too deep and need to u", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "You Need to Ditch VS Code"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["writing disk images", "low-level data copy", "disk imaging", "disk throughput test", "forcing a full disk read"], "compared": [], "makers": [{"id": 782229408, "item_id": 48889338, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48889338", "by": "rh94", "date": "2026-07-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we can run docker on Mac\u2019s with no vm. And its destroying qemu.", "excerpt": "https://github.com/ricccrd/dd I was annoyed by the speed of docker on Mac\u2019s, so I took a journey and decided to rewrite everything about it. DD was original working name and I\u2019m in process of rebranding. But we can run docker on Mac\u2019s with no vm. And its destroying qemu. We have plenty of new features that are comming. Rendering native apps, workspaces, much more.", "context": "", "use_case": "running Docker on macOS without a VM", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884984", "title": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49991227", "title": "Shipping JPEG XL in Chrome", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49696697", "title": "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48349404", "title": "Patching my guitar amp's firmware", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47872324", "title": "I Am Building a Cloud", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46431049", "title": "You Need to Ditch VS Code", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 799911920, "item_id": 49994495, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49994495", "by": "titzer", "date": "2026-10-07", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Long live dd! Except every time I use it I am terrified I'll blow out the brains of the wrong device :/", "excerpt": "Long live dd! Except every time I use it I am terrified I'll blow out the brains of the wrong device :/ Another example clown app: the MacOS downloads of TuxGuitar, a Java app, used to just ship as a zip with a big jar in it. Now it ships an entire Java Runtime environment specific to your processor architecture. It's 480MB. Derp.", "context": "", "use_case": "writing disk images", "switched_from": "", "story": "Shipping JPEG XL in Chrome"}, {"id": 795564288, "item_id": 49722768, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49722768", "by": "JdeBP", "date": "2026-09-16", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The 'wierd syntax' has finally been getopt-ified.", "excerpt": "The 'wierd syntax' has finally been getopt-ified. On the C GNU coreutils 'dd', and in a couple of the BSDs 'dd's. * https://jdebp.uk/Softwares/dd-with-getopt.html It only took 52 years. My prediction stands, by the way. (-:", "context": "", "use_case": "Low-level data copy", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils"}, {"id": 782445104, "item_id": 48902819, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48902819", "by": "timc3", "date": "2026-07-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks great. Going to give it a try.", "excerpt": "This looks great. Going to give it a try.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)"}, {"id": 775743763, "item_id": 48483985, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48483985", "by": "chinkinthearmor", "date": "2026-06-10", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "using `dd` on one of the device partitions", "excerpt": "Thanks for this response, this is awesome! I agree with but extend your last point about breadcrumbs - it's not just that write-ups are hard to find, it's that even several great write-ups for adjacent projects may not be sufficient for a beginner to synthesize a path for his specific project. I spent a week watching YouTube videos and reading in preparation to dump the router firmware, and it still took me 3 days be", "context": "", "use_case": "Disk imaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Patching my guitar amp's firmware"}, {"id": 765975681, "item_id": 47873480, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47873480", "by": "zuhsetaqi", "date": "2026-04-23", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Just for comparison I use the cheapest netcup root server: RS 1000 G12 AMD EPYC\u2122 9645 8 GB DDR5 RAM (ECC) 4 dedicated cores 256 GB NVMe Costs 12,79 \u20ac Results with the follwing command: fio --name=randreadwrite \\ --filename=testfile \\ --size=5G \\ --bs=4k \\ --rw=randrw \\ --rwmixread=70 \\ --iodepth=32 \\ --ioengine=libaio \\ --direct=1 \\ --numjobs=4 \\ --runtime=60 \\ --time_based \\ --group_reporting IOPS Read: 70.1k IOPS W", "context": "", "use_case": "Disk throughput test", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Am Building a Cloud"}, {"id": 742917825, "item_id": 46432364, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46432364", "by": "diarrhea", "date": "2025-12-30", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Then there's `dd`...", "excerpt": "I have trouble gauging the effects of `*`, aka \"will I cp/mv the dir or all contents of the dir\"? Then shell expansion getting in the way, like expanding it all (\"argument list too long\"). I try to use rsync when possible, where intermittent `.` in paths are relevant, as well as trailing slashes... and don't forget `-a`! Then I forget if those same things apply to cp/mv. Then I cp one directory too deep and need to u", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "You Need to Ditch VS Code"}, {"id": 739855584, "item_id": 46240974, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46240974", "by": "jaredhallen", "date": "2025-12-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "But man, do I love me some dd.", "excerpt": "You know, this is true. And I've read any number of \"you should never use dd, use this instead\" articles over the years. But man, do I love me some dd.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools"}, {"id": 736688144, "item_id": 46043009, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46043009", "by": "fainpul", "date": "2025-11-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "On macOS / Linux you can use `dd` to \"copy\" everything from /dev/yourssd to /dev/null.", "excerpt": "On macOS / Linux you can use `dd` to \"copy\" everything from /dev/yourssd to /dev/null. Just be careful not to do it the other way! https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/dd.1.html I have no idea if forcing a read is good / the right way. I'm just answering how to do it.", "context": "", "use_case": "forcing a full disk read", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data"}]}