I am aware of both of those, but in my case I prefer ddrescue for the syntax. For backup scripts I use dd and pv (and pigz). I recall I started using ddrescue

I am aware of both of those, but in my case I prefer ddrescue for the syntax. For backup scripts I use dd and pv (and pigz). I recall I started using ddrescue because one of my distros would not autocomplete with the if= prefix, but I can't seem to replicate it currently - so it's probably been fixed (or my memory is failing me).