Windows 7 - moving music files: copy/ xfer speed (painful)

answer is probably very simple. Perhaps as simple as, "Just deal with it. There is no way to increase the speed of file xfer" . Here is my setup. I have a wireless NAS (Thecus N0503 - neat little gadj). It has two folders: the first one was created when I directly copied (via usb) my extensive mp3 library from a Seagate EHD. Looks like this: N0503: usbcopy/Music Library

The second folder, I added subsequently (as per the instructions for enabling the N0503 to function as my home iTunes server). This folder is called 'iTunes_music'

So, I have: N0503: iTunes_music (folder #1); N0503:usbcopy/Music Library (folder #2)

Now..the problem.

the music needs to be readable in the 'iTunes_music' folder. So my knee jerk reaction is "ok, I gotta cut/paste ALL THESE mp3 sub-folders (by recording artist) from N0503:usbcopy/music library > to > N0503:iTunes_music"

This takes FOREVER!! Soooooo Slooooow. One sub folder (Andrea Bocceli) had 80 songs and took 1 hour!

Can I simply rename the "...Music Libary" folder as "iTunes_music" (and then delete the unused "iTunes_music" folder? (expecting of course that the Itunes link wont be lost. Or is that naive?)

Or, do I need to stay the course the way I'm (painfully slowly) doing it now... (albeit with some sort of tweak that makes the process a bit faster)?

Or is there yet another suggestion... ?

Thank you!


created What I am trying to do is the following. I have extensive mp3 files in

Remember, a watched pot never boils. If I need to copy a lot of data that i know will take some time, i will start it before I go to sleep or to work, and when I wake up it's magically done and it could have been fast or slow, I will never know, nor do I care. You can also use Robocopy to automate things like this.

Robocopy. I presume I can find this online? download from website? Pretty self-explanatory software? Thank you for your reply..

Robocopy comes standard on Windows, via command line, just open up a command line and type in robocopy /? . If you don't like command line you can download a gui for it as well. You can use ti to start copies or keep directories mirrored etc.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/m...spotlight.aspx

Also you can try RichCopy, whis is multi threaded, so if your machine has the horsepower, it can actually copy the files faster than a simple single thread copy. Wortha shot, and its free.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/m...t.aspx?pr=blog

Does the NAS have an OS that you can remote into? Either via SSH or the like? I assume you are doing the transferring from Windows' folder sharing UI. If that is the case you are doing a disservice to yourself. Doing it from the folder sharing UI Windows must download the files then reupload the files over the slow wireless network. But if you did it from the NAS itself...

no. this thing doesn't allow for user interface with folders. There is administrative access via the "http://IP address/admin", this is for changing sharing, ACL, FTP, RAID settings. But, notwithstanding the fact that the folders of concern to me are displayed in this administrative mode, the folders are only accessible for changing sharing settings and no further manipulation on my part is permitted. :-(

I'll try Rich Copy. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm in over my depth in many aspects of the home networking IT experience... punctuated by the fact that I had no idea such programs (as Rich Copy) exist!

The problem here is probably your network path...

If you are on (say) your desktop doing this, the network path you create is

old folder->router->desktop->router->new folder.

If you are on a 100mbps lan that pretty much limits you to 10mBps transfer speeds but they are halved by the time needed to transfer in->transfer out on a packet by packet basis on the path you've created.

Yes, it can be painful sometimes.

Personally, I would have just renamed the folder.