One more way to monitor ddrescue's progress (on Linux, at least) is through the use of strace.

First, find the PID for the ddrescue process using "ps aux | grep ddrescue"

root@mojo:~# ps aux | grep ddrescue
root     12083  0.2  0.0  15764  3248 pts/1    D+   17:15   0:04 ddrescue --direct -d -r0 /dev/sdb1 test.img test.logfile
root     12637  0.0  0.0  13588   940 pts/4    S+   17:46   0:00 grep --color=auto ddrescue

Then run "strace" against that process. You'll see something like:

root@mojo:~# strace -p 12083
Process 12083 attached - interrupt to quit
lseek(4, 1702220261888, SEEK_SET)       = 1702220261888
write(4, "\3101\316\335\213\217\323\343o\317\22M\346\325\322\331\3101\316\335\213\217\323\343o\317\22M\346\325\322\331"..., 512) = 512
lseek(3, 1702220261376, SEEK_SET)       = 1702220261376
read(3, "\3101\316\335\213\217\323\343o\317\22M\346\325\322\331\3101\316\335\213\217\323\343o\317\22M\346\325\322\331"..., 512) = 512
lseek(4, 1702220261376, SEEK_SET)       = 1702220261376
write(4, "\3101\316\335\213\217\323\343o\317\22M\346\325\322\331\3101\316\335\213\217\323\343o\317\22M\346\325\322\331"..., 512) = 512
^C

...and so on. The output is fast and ugly, so I then pipe it through "grep" to filter out the stuff I care about:

root@mojo:/media/u02/salvage# nice strace -p 12083 2>&1|grep lseek
lseek(4, 1702212679168, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212679168
lseek(3, 1702212678656, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212678656
lseek(4, 1702212678656, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212678656
lseek(3, 1702212678144, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212678144
lseek(4, 1702212678144, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212678144
lseek(3, 1702212677632, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212677632
lseek(4, 1702212677632, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212677632
lseek(3, 1702212677120, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212677120
lseek(4, 1702212677120, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212677120
lseek(3, 1702212676608, SEEK_SET)       = 1702212676608
^C

In that example, the "1702212676608" equates to "the amount of data that still needs to be processed on that 2 Tb disk you're trying to salvage." (Yeah. Ouch.) ddrescue is spitting out a similar number -- albeit as "1720 GB" -- in its screen output.

strace gives you a MUCH higher granularity data stream for you to examine; it's one more way to evaluate the speed of ddrescue and estimate a completion date.

Running it constantly is probably a bad plan since it would compete with ddrescue for CPU time. I've taken to piping it to "head" so I can grab the first 10 values:

root@mojo:~# strace -p 4073 2>&1 | grep lseek | head

Hope this helps someone.