To create a 1GB file:
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=1g.bin bs=1G count=1
Server Throughput (Streaming I/O):
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/root/testfile bs=1G count=1 oflag=dsync
Server Latency:
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/root/testfile bs=512 count=1000 oflag=dsync
Testing Write Speed:
# Set the block size to 1MB and copy 1000 blocks
dd if=/dev/urandom of=testfile bs=1M count=1000
Testing Read Speed:
dd if=testfile of=/dev/null bs=1M