transferring files and folders

whats the best way to transfer files and folders to a second hdd. Im copying and pasting them but it's really slow. Any ideas?

 

i would use fastcopy or teracopy
both are free and they use hash to verify

or total commander is a great tool

 

I use a utility called Y-Copy to copy data from clients old hard drives. Works especially well for drives which are having problems...it doesn't stop at files it's unable to copy (for example, corrupted files), it copies what it can, and provides a list of the files it was unable to copy.

 

Another excellent application that's especially good for copying data from suspect hardware is Unstoppable Copier.It's available as a portable version too:

http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29

Also I use Teracopy as a replacement for Vista's native file transfer.

 

Thanks for these suggestions, I will make good use of them (well one of them anyway).

 

does y-copy have an hash feature to verify?

 

I am currently testing Unstoppable Copier and Teracopy. I am not sure which is faster but there is something odd about Unstoppable Copier that I wonder if someone can comment on. I selected the folder that I wanted to copy, selected the destination, and hit copy. Off the program went doing its thing. After about 15 min I went to XYplorer and opened the drive the files were being copied to and I found that the contents of the folder selected were being copied, but not the folder itself. Is this normal? Did I do something wrong (or omit to do something I should have done?). Not a real big deal if this is how the program works ----- as long as I remember to re-create an empty folder with the same name as the one I am copying over and have that folder as the destination. Seems like an odd thing though.

While I am at it, Unstoppable has a pretty steady copy rate of about 7.8 mb/s while Terabytes varies considerably, as low as 2 mb/s and as high as 20+ mb/s. Unstoppable does not provide an estimated time to completion while Terabyte does, but Terabytes estimate is all over the map so its pretty useless as a guide as to how long the job should take. Some sort of reasonably accurate estimate would be nice. I suppose I can use Unstoppable stated transfer rate to calculate the apx time to completion but it is a bit of an nuisance to have to do this.

 

Hummmm------ Just checked how long Unstoppable has been at it and after 2 hours its only half done (109 gigs of data being transfered). Fast Copy had estimated 3 hours and I felt that was not very good as I recall copying the same 109 gigs of data in apx 2 hours using ExplorerPlus (pretty sure I have this right).

I am copying to a new drive (WD Passport Essential SE - 750 gig) so perhaps it has something to do with the new drive rather than the programs in question. Is it possible the new drive has a slower write speed than my 500 gig WD Passport? Or could it be a function of the read speed as I usually would copy from a Terabyte WD external (not portable) drive?

Oh yes, I should also mention I have been using the PC while the copy process is running while I normally run large copy jobs with the PC otherwise idle. I have been mainly internet browsing, could this have slowed things down this much?

 

Another thing I wonder about is ----- is there any copy program that does NOT change the date on the folders it copies. File dates are the same but all folders dates have been changed (and have been in the past with other copy jobs)?

 

And while we are at it, if the transfer rate is 7.8 mb/s, which is 456 mb/min, and I am copying 109 gigs, should the process not take just under an hour? If so how come the process actually is taking just under 4 hours? Maybe these programs are just smoke and mirrors.

I will have to do a full test with the other programs but Unstoppable (at least) does not inspire much confidence if its reporting is so flawed.

 

I just ran 1/3 of the same file transfer using Teracopy and its a bit faster than Unstoppable. The job would take apx 3.5 hours to complete fully.

 

give a try to fastcopy

 

I tried it, it was the slowest of the 3, but thanks for the suggestion.

 

I would say that the 'estimated time' feature of all these programs should really be called 'guesstimated time' since during a transfer of many different types of files,the time to completion will vary wildly.

As for Unstoppable Copier,by default it's set to the slowest transfer (Best Data Recovery) which is best for retrieving data from suspect drives,you can however set it to copy faster in the options.

 

456 MB/min = 27360 MB/hour

109GB = 109000 MB

109000 (MB) /27360 (MB/hour) = 3.98 hours, or 4 hours rounded.

 

strange in my experience it's the faster with total commander

so is teracopy the more fast in the list?

 

Thank you for this, much appreciated.

 

Opps, your right, I divided instead of multiplied. Thanks for the correction.

 

According to my testing Teracopy was the fastest but I will have to test Unstoppable again since I ran it at its slowest setting. I did not try Total Commander as I was just testing copy programs.

 

i got a question what if you were in the middle of copying a large amount of files and the power went out, what would happen. Would you lose any data

 

Not sure but this is why you want to have a good back-up battery.

I would guess that you might get a file or 2 corrupted on the paste side but anything already finished being copied would be fine and of course the original files should be fine since all you are doing is copying them.

I expect it would be a more serious matter if you were moving the files rather than copying them. Then you might lose a few files but again anything moved already would be fine and files not yet moved should also be fine.

 

Its a bit off topic but what you guys use if power shut down : UPS for example ?

 

BEST POWER BACK-UP DEVICE??

I vote for:

Liebert PowerSure
http://www.liebert.com/product_pages/SecondaryCategory.aspx?id=1&hz=60