copying small files

Hi all,

anyone here could tell me why copying a bunch of small files in Win7 takes so long (transfer rate under 1MB/s)...it's the same in Vista, so here's a case where Win7 didn't improve things. Doing the same sort of operation in XP or Linux can be twenty/thirty times faster.

I'd really like to have some feedback on this one, 'cause it's been bothering me for a while. Thanks

edit: copying big files is also not as fast as it should be compared to XP, but the difference is not as huge as when copying small data.

edit: I'm of course talking about copying from one partition to another on a single HDD. Copying small data to a USB key is still worse.

adding: I mean I'd call it a very serious issue, that's been there since the release of Vista, so that has nothing to do with Seven being at beta or RC stage...

I actually had the opposite problem, xp and xp64 were slow with small files... so I got a freeware program called teracopy to copy files in xp... now in win7 I find file copies go much faster...

Like garysgold says if you put your system specs in your profile (user control panel has a spot just for them!) the pros can look at what hardware you have and see if there's an easily diagnosable problem.

Would it be down to the actual OS or down to how windows explorer handles files. If its the latter then using an alternative such as Cubic Reality might help.

Ooh an explorer alternative I haven't heard of! *bookmarks*
Thanks! *makes mental note to download that and try it tomorrow*

garysgold said:

Hi Logos,

Welcome to the forums.

If you fill in your system specs (via User CP) it would help. I am not having that problem with either Vista or Seven.

Gary

done , and thanks for the welcome.
honestly I had these exact same issues about copying on another machine (Pentium 4) and Vista, and the Web is full of threads from people complaining about the same thing when it comes to copying/deleting files in Vista and now Win7.

see here, about 35 pages from jan 2007 until now:
calculating time remaining moving, deleteing, copying files verry slow : Windows Vista Desktop UI : Windows Vista IT Pro : Microsoft TechNet Forums

I do not believe as some are suggesting that DRM is involved, but there must be a check, somewhere somehow, and well hidden in the system. Sorry if that makes me a bit angry but I've just seen too much of it. And MS doesn't seem to take the issue into account at all. Only thing I can think of is it's not an issue for them. It's purely and simply wanted. And that's not acceptable. It's happened to me again yesterday as I copied some files from a usb key onto a drive partition in Windows: took about ten minutes. Then had to copy those files to another Windows partition: took another ten minutes. Before all this, the files were copied from a Linux partition to the usb key: took 20 seconds ! And XP was almost as fast as Linux in such cases, so what have they done in Vista and now in Win7, yes, what ?

ok im about to head to bed but I remember hearing about SOMEthing related to this, and a bug with a popular P4 chipset or controller or SOMEthing that there was a patch for, it was similar in some way to the old via bug that if you copied data from one pata controller to the other it corrupted data - only in this it was with all data and it just made it very slow... if I can remember what it was ill come back and post about it

I did notice you talked about a p4 system doing this and have another p4 based system as your current box...

OK so it might be a P4 issue; I'll google that and if that's really the case I'll google for a fix...if any ...

hello my friends i have the same problem and im getting crazy

1 GB of small failes and it says 1+ hour! (there are 60.000 files +)
OMG
my machine is a killer 8gb ram 4 core all latest technology !




something going wrong with 7 explorer ... many strange things happening
many times the auto refresh doesnt work
most of times when doing sort by artist to an audio folder the sort by is completely wrong
this copy problem i mention before ...
also there is a slow move and even slow delete problem..
+ many times it dont let me to delete folders and files (not used by any other process or anything else )

stampler said:

hello my friends i have the same problem and im getting crazy

1 GB of small failes and it says 1+ hour! (there are 60.000 files +)
OMG
my machine is a killer 8gb ram 4 core all latest technology !




something going wrong with 7 explorer ... many strange things happening
many times the auto refresh doesnt work
most of times when doing sort by artist to an audio folder the sort by is completely wrong
this copy problem i mention before ...
also there is a slow move and even slow delete problem..
+ many times it dont let me to delete folders and files (not used by any other process or anything else )

stampler

first things first we need you entire system specs

Ken