How can I use dd command on a Linux to test I/O performance of my hard disk drive? How do I check the performance of a hard drive including the read and write speed on a Linux operating systems? How can I use the dd command under Linux I/O performance test?

You can use the following commands on a Linux or Unix-like systems for simple sequential I/O performance test:

• dd command : It is used to monitor the writing performance of a disk device on a Linux and Unix-like system.
• hdparm command : It is used to get/set hard disk parameters including test the reading and caching performance of a disk device on a Linux based system.

In this tutorial you will learn how to use the dd command to test disk I/O performance .

Use dd command to monitor the reading and writing performance of a disk device:

1. Open a shell prompt.
2. Or login to a remote server via ssh.
3. Use the dd command to measure server throughput (write speed) dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test1.img bs=1G count=1 oflag=dsync
4. Use the dd command to measure server latency dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test2.img bs=512 count=1000 oflag=dsync

#linux #unix #i/o