Nice trick to run dd over ethernet:

Source:
dd bs=16M if=/dev/sdX | gzip | nc server 1000

Target:
nc -l -p 1000 | gunzip | pv | dd bs=16M of=/dev/sdX

or via ssh:

dd bs=16M if=/dev/sdX | gzip | ssh user@server "gunzip | dd bs=16M of=/dev/sdb"