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

[Eric F Crist]

On Dec 28, 2007, at 3:39 AM, David Ledger wrote:

> 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

Please note that this is definately NOT the way to do this for same- 
partition moves, mv is the fastest, as it only changes the pointers  
and no data is actually moved on the hard drive.

-----
Eric F Crist
Secure Computing Networks