Windows 7 File Copy Speed

Garyvdh said:
Having just moved about ten terabytes of stuff, all sizes of files across all types of drives (but mostly SATA), on about 6 different computers over the last week, I think I can say with confidence that Windows 7 file copy speed maxes out around 20 MB/second, frequently far less.

The copy speed in Windows XP was far superior. But at least Windows 7 copies don't bomb out when they come across a file they can't handle.

I'm gonna give Teracopy another try and see if a third party program can improve on the default transfer speed.

Here are some other copy options...

http://www.techyard.net/tools-to-replace-windows-default-copy-paste/
Click to expand...

Why not increase the number of threads?
There is a command to do just that.
Will try find it for you.
 
Garyvdh said:
Hmm, definitely helps. Gives me around 44 MB/s

I tried some tests. Older drives (like my 320 Gb) are slower, and in fact they don't even give you the option of viewing the extra info. But they are not that old, should not be that much of a performance degradation.

But between my newer Samsung 1 Tb drives the copy speed is 55 MB/s.

but surely according the SATA standards, the newer SATA should transfer close to 300 MB/s ???
Click to expand...

No way any single HDD would get close to 300MB/s. The SATA interface speed is way faster than the speed at which data can be read from a single disk.

Its kinda like the speedometer on my spark going up to 180 - simply a number :)
 
iDenTiTy said:
Aaaaah. Here it is.

Robocopy.
:)


Regards,
iD.
Click to expand...

Robocopy was pure awesomeness - one of those tools that I simply cannot do without....

If you do not like working from a command line, then try Richcopy. It has the same functionality as Robocopy, and has a GUI. Also remember that increasing the number of threads could, in some cases, reduce performance....
 
Interesting. When copying from my 320gb to 1tb (one big file, like a game ISO) I normally get around 50mb/s. Would hate to see what I get with loads of small files.
 
Found this old article in my bookmarks.

If you do any serious file copying on a Windows system, you'll quickly discover that there are substantial limitations to the default file copier. Ease your file copying frustrations with these five alternative copiers.

Copying a few documents from your hard drive to your flash drive doesn't stress out the default copier too much. If you're dumping gigabytes of data from one drive to another, however, you'll quickly find that the default copier is sluggish and unreliable. The pinnacle of frustration: When Microsoft's default copier putters out while you're transferring tons of files and you're left with no indication what was copied and what wasn't, leaving you to pick through the file lists on each end or starting from scratch to ensure a clean copy. The five excellent alternatives below all succeed at alleviating the many shortcomings of the default copier.
Click to expand...

Source: Lifehacker
 
SlinkyMike said:
Is this true?
I don't want to start one here but if this is true then Windows loses every OS war thread that has ever or will ever be.[/I]
Click to expand...

When Microsoft's default copier putters out while you're transferring tons of files and you're left with no indication what was copied and what wasn't, leaving you to pick through the file lists on each end or starting from scratch to ensure a clean copy
Click to expand...

If you are talking about the above comment, it's more applicable to XP and below because in Vista/7 I don't have the above problem (just don't have a pause option).
 
DJNgoma said:
If you are talking about the above comment, it's more applicable to XP and below because in Vista/7 I don't have the above problem (just don't have a pause option).
Click to expand...

I heard that this problem was worst in VISTA. I don't have this problem with XP even copying 100s of GBs of various size files. The last time I used a dedicated file copier was Norton Desktop for Windows 2.0 under Windows 3.1 and PC Shell V8 under MS-DOS.
 
PeterCH said:
I heard that this problem was worst in VISTA.
Click to expand...
I prefer Vista way more than XP in user friendliness, the OS even gives you the option to merge folders that already exist. XP with multiple files and folders... You have to open each and every folder then the manually copy and paste these multiple files into their respective folders.
 
DJNgoma said:
If you are talking about the above comment, it's more applicable to XP and below because in Vista/7 I don't have the above problem (just don't have a pause option).
Click to expand...

The pause file copy function was one (of the many) things about Linux that made it stand out when I was first playing around with it. It just gave you that feeling of: "How could anyone do it any other way?"... very cool.

I am very shocked to hear though that in Windows you have an operating system that cannot reliably copy files under certain circumstances. Granted, I never found myself in such circumstances but maybe I simply knew no better? I certainly remember waiting around for stuff to finish copying... a lot.

DJNgoma said:
I prefer Vista way more than XP in user friendliness, the OS even gives you the option to merge folders that already exist. XP with multiple files and folders... You have to open each and every folder then the manually copy and paste these multiple files into their respective folders.
Click to expand...

I really liked the 'breadcrumb' address bar feature in Vista - thought that was a step in the right direction. Also the Start -> begin typing to locate programs really changed the way that I used the OS.
 
Last edited:
On my system via USB2 I get 35mb/s consistently.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X