FEATURED Need a smarter file copying tool for moving several TB of files

LoneWolf121188 · May 8, 2013

I just bought a new external HDD, and I'm in the process of both moving tons of files around, as well as organizing everything. I want to be able to queue up all the moves I want to make, and the software to just figure it out and not crap it's pants like Windows Explorer does and try to move it all at the same time. Any recommendations?

Insane Scyth · May 9, 2013

For transferring files, I use Teracopy and have been pretty happy with it.

medo145 · May 9, 2013

+1 for teracopy, the features of teracopy should be standard with windows

SteveLord · May 9, 2013

Another for teracopy.

LoneWolf121188 · May 9, 2013

Sweet, thanks!

I.M.O.G. · May 9, 2013

Windows has a tool built in, and I've copied Terabytes of data with it reliably over network connections - both LAN and WAN. Some of the WAN links were even slow, still did the job.

What you want, if you don't want to use a third party tool, and if you are cool with the command line, is robocopy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

If you want to try it but not do so through the command line, there are also GUI front-ends:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy#GUI_front-end

LoneWolf121188 · May 9, 2013

I.M.O.G. said:
Windows has a tool built in, and I've copied Terabytes of data with it reliably over network connections - both LAN and WAN. Some of the WAN links were even slow, still did the job.

What you want, if you don't want to use a third party tool, and if you are cool with the command line, is robocopy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

If you want to try it but not do so through the command line, there are also GUI front-ends:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy#GUI_front-end

Thanks. I've never understood why on earth Explorer doesn't just act as a GUI for robocopy or xcopy...both are far, far better than the copy/paste implementation in explorer.

I.M.O.G. · May 9, 2013

That is an excellent question. Never really thought about it like that.

medo145 · May 10, 2013

i don't know if robocopy or xcopy do this, but I like how you can copy multiple things with teracopy and it will que the files instead of trying to copy all of them at the same time.

c627627 · May 10, 2013

Yes. If a third-party solution cannot "que the files instead of trying to copy all of them at the same time" like TeraCopy can, then that would be a deal-breaker.

As anyone who's tried to execute a few copy-paste operations at the same time onto a slow hard drive knows, the process would take significantly longer then if they were qued up.

So if TeraCopy is the only one being discussed here that can do that, that's pretty incredible that others can't do it.

I.M.O.G. · May 10, 2013

Can you explain further what you mean by "queue the files instead of copy them all at the same time"? I don't understand really what you are getting at there.

With robocopy, you can watch the files go, and one will show up at a time, then once its copied, the next file will show up. So it seems like its working through a queue. But then that seems like the same way windows explorer works, except robocopy won't take a dump if it encounters an error, and it can resume where it left off.

c627627 · May 10, 2013

I understood what the poster said, if you Copy-Paste and it starts, then if you Copy-Paste something else after that while another Copy-Paste process is still in progress then a second Copy-Paste process starts simultaneously under Windows.

And so on and no sweat for SSD but for 5,400 RPM hard drive, all the copy-paste processes will slow down to a crawl, depending on how many simultaneous copy-paste processes you have going, surely we've all experienced that?

If a third-party solution has an option to not start additional copy-paste processes UNTIL previous ones complete, than that's what we're talking about. If it has that option then great. If it does not, then it is missing a major feature it should not be missing. We need to que up copy-paste processes so that they execute one after the other, not simultaneously.

I.M.O.G. · May 10, 2013

Gotcha. That example scenario is what I needed to catch on about what you were after.

insanemonkey · May 10, 2013

I am a big fan of robocopy. There are just so many options to customize it to the task at hand.

idkfa · May 13, 2013

I wonder why nobody suggested Total Commander yet, another great and free tool for managing files. And it even copies faster than windows explorer. Has a lot of great options.

eskimochaos · May 13, 2013

SyncToy

medo145 · May 13, 2013

idkfa said:
I wonder why nobody suggested Total Commander yet, another great and free tool for managing files. And it even copies faster than windows explorer. Has a lot of great options.

How can it copy faster than explorer? Wouldn't the speed limited by the hardware?

idkfa · May 13, 2013

medo145 said:
How can it copy faster than explorer? Wouldn't the speed limited by the hardware?

You can see it here and on other YT videos:

I think the speed depends on how the files are copied, I don't think the hardware is the real limit.

c627627 · May 13, 2013

OK so you would fire up a third party copy utility if you need a faster copy-paste operation and if you wanted to que up files to be copied because if you've already started a copy-paste operation in Windows, there is no queing up after that.

What else do people use them for?

idkfa · May 13, 2013

c627627 said:
What else do people use them for?

* Mass renaming, you can keep parts of names or change parts of names
* synchronizing folders/files
* backups
* ...

Most of them are pretty versatile file browsers, with a lot of useful functions that can easyly be accessed or are not offered natively by windows explorer. There are a lot of pros and I think some cons, it's up to oneself if you want to use a third party programm or not. For me it's the things I mentioned above which make me using it.

FEATURED Need a smarter file copying tool for moving several TB of files

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Glorious Leader

Member

Glorious Leader

Member

c(n*199780) Senior Member

Glorious Leader

c(n*199780) Senior Member

Glorious Leader

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

c(n*199780) Senior Member

Member

Similar threads