I think that: dd of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 count=1440 if=<image>.bin is faster than: dd of=/dev/fd0 if=<image>.bin When I use the first form, it prints the `1440 records in' &c messages right away, even before the floppy drive spins up much. I think it buffers everything then. it still doesn't give me my shell prompt back until after everything is written to disk. It seems to take a little less time to write the image also.