i&#x27;ve found that pv is useful for this purpose. however i&#x27;ve never been quite clear on what the best way to use bs with pv is. is it<p><pre><code>  dd if=&#x2F;dev&#x2F;sda bs=1M | pv &gt; sda.file
</code></pre>
or is this better<p><pre><code>  dd if=&#x2F;dev&#x2F;sda bs=1M | pv | dd of=sda.file bs=1M</code></pre>