Copying Large Amounts of data via USB/FW (was Re: [X-Unix] Re: Pokey LAN transfers (Resolved))

[David Ledger]

At 22:12 -0500 27/12/07, TjL wrote:
>I have a large amount of data (GBs and GBs) spread across several
>external HDs, some USB2, some Firewire 400.
>I am trying to consolidate them and organize them so that similar data
>is on the same drives, i.e. TV shows on one, movies on another, short
>home movies from our digital camera on another, etc.
>These range from a folder with dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of
>smaller files (under 200mb) to folders with a bunch of DVD rips (4-8GB
>but a few files).
>All of the drives are HFS+ Journaled, attached to a 2.8Ghz iMac
>running Leopard either by USB (powered hubs) or daily chained Firewire
>drives.
>
>I've pretty much given up on using Finder because it gives such
>useless error messages, and am using 'mv -iv' in Terminal.
>
>Is there a better/faster way to do this?

mv between volumes does:
            rm -f destination_path && \
            cp -pRP source_file destination && \
            rm -rf source_file
(from the man page).

cp is the fastest you're going to get, as it knows each file size 
before each new file creation, and so can avoid the time consuming 
task of getting many smaller extents allocated. It will be quickest 
if there is lots of contiguous free space on the destination.

David


-- 
David Ledger - Freelance Unix Sysadmin in the UK.
HP-UX specialist of hpUG technical user group (www.hpug.org.uk)
david.ledger at ivdcs.co.uk
www.ivdcs.co.uk