You missed it: 1. bs was already included in the post (FWIW the shorthand is '1M' in Linux, and that's 1048576 :-)) 2. I was referring to the use of disk vs r

You missed it: 1. bs was already included in the post (FWIW the shorthand is '1M' in Linux, and that's 1048576 :-)) 2. I was referring to the use of disk vs rdisk (i.e buffered vs unbuffered/raw, see details[0]), which IIRC is a BSD-ism. Using rdisk gives a tenfold increase in speed here. Without it you're nowhere near USB2 speeds. [0]: http://lists.apple.com/archives/filesystem-dev/2012/Feb/msg00015.html http://lists.apple.com/archives/filesystem-dev/2012/Feb/msg0...