this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024

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523

dd: disk destroyer (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 2 months ago (4 children)

IMHO, it was a mistake to make USB block storage use the same line of names also used for local hard disks. Sure, the block device drivers for USB mass storage internally hook into the SCSI subsystem to provide block level access, and that's why the drives are called sd[something], but why should I as an end user have to care about that? A USB drive is very much not the same thing for me as a SCSI harddisk. A NVMe drive on the other hand, kinda sorta is, at least from a practical purpose point of view, yet NVMe drives get a completely different naming scheme.

That aside, suggest you use lsblk before dd.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah lsblk, lsscsi, fdsik -l , go have a coffee, come back later and hit enter on dd

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah lsblk, lsscsi, fdsik -l , go have a coffee, come back later and hit enter on dd

Then realize you typed the command wrong and panic when you don't get an error.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

I still made the mistake, when I sleep deprived switched if and of somehow
My then girlfriend wasn't exactly happy, that all here photos and music, which we just moved off old CDs, that couldn't be read correctly anymore, and I spent quite some time to finally move them

Obviously the old CDs and the backup image were thrown out/deleted just a few days earlier, because I proudly had saved the bulk of it - and being poor students having loads of storage for multiple backups wasn't in reach.
Backing them up again to fresh CDs was on the plan, but I quickly needed a live USB stick to restore my work laptop...

Since then I'm always anxious, when working with dd. Still years later I triple check and already think through my backup restoration plan
Which is a good thing in itself, but my heart rate spikes can't be healthy

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

While we're at it, can we also rename the hard drive block devices back to hd instead of sd again? SATA might use the SCSI subsystem, but SATA ain't SCSI.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

At least sata is well on its way towards dying, so the problem will solve itself in some more years.
My machines all have nvme exclusively now, only some servers are left using sata. And I would say the type of user at risk of fucking up a dd command (which 95% of the time should be a cp command) doesn't deal with servers. Those are also not machines you plug thumb drives into commonly.

In 5-10 years we will think of sda as the usb drive, and it'll be a fun-fact that sda used to be the boot drive.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

does that mean that you dont use hard drives at all? how many storage have you got?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (10 children)

I have a nas with 32TB. My main pc has 2TB and my laptop 512GB. I expected to need to upgrade especially the laptop at some point, but haven't gotten anywhere near using up that local storage without even trying.
I don't have anything huge I couldn't put on the nas.

At this point I could easily go 4TB on the laptop and 8TB the desktop if I needed to.
Spinning rust is comparable in speed to networking anyway, so as long as noone invents a 20TB 2.5'' hdd that fits my laptop for otg storage, there would be no reason something would benefit from an hdd in my systems over in my nas.

Edit:
Anything affordable in ssd storage has similar prices in M.2-nvme and 2.5''-sata format. So unless you have old hardware, I see the remaining use for sata as hdd-only.

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[–] muhyb 58 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Always lsblk before dd. The order of /sdX might change from boot to boot. Only /nvme doesn't change.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why is this?

[–] muhyb 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's a design thing. BIOS can know NVMe disks' location because they're directly mounted to PCIe. SATA isn't like this. Similar logic with the RAM slots.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 months ago

I am become dd, the destroyer of disks

[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 months ago

"/dev/sdb? It's sdb? With a B? Yep that's the flash drive. Just type it in... of=/dev/sd what was the letter again? B? Alright, /dev/sdb. Double check with lsblk, yep that's the small disk. Are my backups working properly? Alright here goes nothing... "

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Commands like dd are the best. Good ole greybeard-era spells with arcane syntax and the power to casually wipe out the whole universe (from their perspective ofc) if used haphazardly or not in respectful manner.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

What do you mean? Explicitly having to set if= and of= is way harder to screw up than mixing up the order of arguments for e.g. cp.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I could swear the argument order to "ln" swaps every now and then!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Unless you forget what if and of mean. With cp it's simply "cp what where". Never had problems remembering that.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

is it really hard to remember infile and outfile?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

No, but you're just typing if and of, not infile and outfile, and the letters are right next to each other on a qwerty kbd. One can haphazardly misuse a lot of commands, it's just that some commands may lead to nastier outcomes than others.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 months ago (2 children)

--status=progress. So happy when they added this.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

If only I could remember to set status=progress...

I always end up using killall -USR1 from another terminal

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

This is the only reason why I still use GUI for making Linux USBs. Can't trust my ADHD ass to write the correct drive name. Also, none of my USB drives have a light.

Popsicle is pretty nice, it doesn't let you choose the internal drives afaik.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (3 children)

i always just

cat /dev/??? > /dev/null

to make sure the usb blinks

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

More like *screams into the void*

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Me laughing with /dev/nvme0n1p1

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

That's a good way of doing it

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You all still have a LED inside USB flashdrive?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Yep! I just installed Void about ten minutes ago off a 2GB stick from the mid-2000s. Somehow, those little sticks just keep going!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Same! I have a 4gb white SanDisk stick, from like 12-14 years ago and is still working 💀💀 it even died on me once, and started working again after a few days 😳😳

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I buy them specifically with LED. It s helpful for data transfer, but also helpful for doing a flash of new OS to old nas hardware... You have to hold reset button in on nas until you see it start to read USB (by LED) then you know you can release the reset button.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Remember kids, always lsblk before you dd

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

heh i do it hardcore, my USB has no light ;)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Don't confuse if and of!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

don't cross the streams

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

/dev/disk/by-id/xxx works for me. Never made a mistake.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Sounds like someone's not up to date with their backups.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

ls /dev > /tmp/before

ls /dev > /tmp/after

diff /tmp/before /tmp/after

<sweating>

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You could just open gnome disks

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

ok grandma, go back to facebook /s

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

worst case for me would be ereasing my ventoy drive.

cause i for sure wont be partitioning any of my nvme drives. so the only mistake i can make is like type sda instead of sdb which would just be another usb drive🤷

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I want a immutible Linux that restricts access to critical components. I wouldn't mind running my desktop in a container.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

NixOS store (app folder) is read only. You literally can't mess with it. It doesn't really need a container, most things are locked down already. Of course you could mess up your home folder, but that's on you then

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

We seriously need a series of DD-Command 4 Dummies guides Also you guys have USB drives with lights ????

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