pv (Pipe Viewer)

http://www.debianadmin.com/pv-pipe-viewer-shell-pipeline-element-to-meter-data-passing-through.html

Sometimes there is a need to copy lots of data verbatim. In Linux the easiest way is to use dd command for it, or dd_rescue in case of errors. However, original dd has one drawback, namely it's not possible to know its progress until it finishes. Copying partition images with size in 30-40 GB range is boring, because the commands starts, disk LED is flashing, and nothing is displayed. The aforementioned pv has a lot of potential in my eyes, because it brings long awaited progress information.

Since I haven't copied big files using dd recently, I cannot predict whether it would work (most probably yes). But when the need arises, I'm definitely going to use pv in combination with dd to possibly get a nice progress info. :-)