http://lethargy.org/~jesus/writes/disk-benchmarking-with-dd-dont
BTW, while I'll admit up front that Theo is probably a lot better at this stuff then I will ever hope to be (just starting to read his book), I don't see a reason in that post as to why not. Other than "because I said so". He runs some tests and assumes we know how to draw the same conclusions from them that he does, but does not really explain what those conclusions are. Now go back to my first clause of my first sentence .
Not that I would think of using this as my only benchmark - I will still be doing the dd benchmarks.