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Is it faster to move files between media in large pieces (i.e. many files and folders within an archive) or move them file-by-file? Is there a significant difference, considering that the file transfer completes with no errors?
iglvzx
Posted 2011-11-23T00:08:46.233
Reputation: 21 611
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If contents and size are equal, then transferring one file should be faster due to only having one header/index entry to deal with. The setup and tear-down overhead of many files can add significant time to the transfers.
See this SU question for more info: Why does copying the same amount of data take longer if spread across many separate files?
Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
Posted 2011-11-23T00:08:46.233
Reputation: 103 763
1"Better" how? Faster? Less chance of corruption? – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2011-11-23T01:10:44.690
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possible duplicate of Which is faster, copying everything at once or one thing at a time?
– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2011-11-23T01:11:33.130@techie007 I meant faster. Edited! – iglvzx – 2011-11-23T01:11:50.993
@techie007 This is not a duplicate, as they are asking about a queue of file transfers. I am asking about transferring the files as a single archive (e.g. *.zip), as opposed to file-by-file (individually). – iglvzx – 2011-11-23T01:13:29.777
Do you count the time of archiving and unarchiving? which basically means one copy at each side. – mouviciel – 2011-11-24T09:09:30.270