So, using the command:

root@new# ssh root@old dd if=/dev/vg/somedisk | dd of=/dev/vg/somedisk

appears to fail, getting a SIGTERM at some point for no discernable reason... however, using

root@old# dd if=/dev/vg/somedisk | ssh root@new dd of=/dev/vg/somedisk

works fine.

The pull version fails at a fairly random point after a fairly undefined period of time. The push version works everytime. This is most confusing and odd...

Dear lazyweb, please give me some new ideas as to what's going on, it's driving me nuts!

Update: solved...

A different daemon wasn't limiting it's killing habits in the case that a certain process wasn't running, and was killing the ssh process on the new server almost at random, found the bug in the code and now testing with that.

Thanks for all the suggestions though, much appreciated.