I use pv(1) all the time. Not a standard command, but everyone should install it and start using it. It replaces dd for most use cases and Just Does The Right Thing by default. It's part of my required packages list on every system, along with strace, htop, iotop, and vim.https://twitter.com/Yeah1Whatever/status/991568978479910913 …
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The one annoying thing about that is that in order to write to block devices using cat or pv, your shell must be running as root - "sudo cat" is not enough. So I just use dd and save myself the hassle.
tee also works for this (and is the canonical way for config files and the like, though for writing to block devices it's a bit wasteful). Or you can `sudo sh -c '...'`. But really, just `sudo -i` if you're going to be writing to block devices anyway.