/dev/random and dd

Hi,

I'm trying:

dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda bs=1024

and I get a trickle of random out of /dev/random. Basically, I get a few records (4 
or 5) when I break out of it after a few seconds. If I use /dev/urandom I seem to 
get a little more data, but still _very_ slow. usring /dev/null doesn't work at all, but 
/dev/zero does. 

Timing the process, urandom gives me about 1.8K/s. This running on ancient 
hardware (486). Is the random device that processor-hungry? Or is something 
else amiss?

I'm on 2.0.103.


Yan
-- 
Yan Fitterer
IT Manager, Royal Academy of Music
E-mail : [email protected]
Marylebone Rd, London, NW1 5HT
Phone (+44) 20 7873 7365 Fax (+44) 20 7873 7364