What initially mystified me into thinking "I guess I have to use `dd` for block devices" was learning that `rsync` doesn't work with block devices. I just trie

What initially mystified me into thinking "I guess I have to use `dd` for block devices" was learning that `rsync` doesn't work with block devices. I just tried to copy an ISO to a USB drive with `rsync`, and it didn't work. Looking it up, I read these comments[0]: "rsync operates on files which are on a filesystem. It doesn’t do comparisons between blocks. If you want to back up a block device to a file, use dd" "I completely understood the use case. rsync (still) does not operate on block devices, so it’s not the solution here." "Agreed, rsync has never operated on block devices." So I thought, "Ah. There's File Data, which is what `rsync` deals with, and RAW BLOCK data, which is what scary hardcore tools like `dd` deal with." Then the notion that `cp` and `cat` can deal with both species of data is confusing. :p 0: https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxadmin/comments/eappzm/rsync_block_device_as_a_file/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linuxadmin/comments/eappzm/rsync_bl...