What is the difference between /dev/dsk and /dev/rdsk?

Question

It appears that ZFS interacts with /dev/dsk.

I have had success duplicating drive contents one slice at a time using a command similar to
cat /dev/rdsk/c1t3d0s0 > /dev/rdsk/c1t4d0s0.

Solution 1

The /dev/rdsk devices are character devices. These are used for low level manipulation of the corresponding slice's data a character at a time. The /dev/dsk devices are block devices. These are used for accessing the slice's data in blocks in a structured manner through a filesystem.

ZFS works on storage pools. Storage pools are built using virtual devices (vdevs). Vdevs can be built from disks,partitions or block devices.

Solution 2

usually r stands for raw disk - meaning you access it into a non buffered mode.

Comments

[700 Software]

So, does this mean that they both access the same data in the same length and order, just in a different way?