which command for cloning partitions is better?

I learned today how to use dd to clone a partition, by entering Code:sudo dd if=/dev/sdb6 of=/dev/sda2Before that, the only cloning command I knew was e2image, which I just copied from watching gparted: Code:e2image -ra -p '/dev/sda0' '/dev/sdb0'Is either command preferable to the other? The only way I see is in the time needed. Having timed the dd cloning on my stopwatch (because it wasn't displaying the progress or how long it would take), I see that it took about 41 minutes for a 50 GB partition. I haven't timed the other command yet, but I'm pretty sure it didn't take that long last time I used it.