copying files to disk (best practice?)

[Soogs]

If you have files/folders in multiple locations which will end up on a separate drive,
is it better to do the transfers one by one (folder by folder) or simultaneously?

I'm trying to avoid fragmentation and trying to speed things up
I will not be able to defrag the destination drive so not sure if doing transfers at the same time will increase the change of fragmentation?

eg: 3 source drives, all have a mix of large, small and tiny files

Source Drive A -->
Source Drive B --> destination Drive D
Source Drive C -->

 

[Tanin'iver]

Is the destination drive SSD or mechanical?

If it's mechanical and you are doing this in Windows, definitely do one at a time - the performance will absolutely tank, the destination disk will thrash about seeking constantly as Windows tries to get it to do several different writes simultaneously. Fragmentation is likely to occur too.

If it's an SSD then free free to do them all at once.

 

[DeliciousStorage]

If you have files/folders in multiple locations which will end up on a separate drive,
is it better to do the transfers one by one (folder by folder) or simultaneously?

I'm trying to avoid fragmentation and trying to speed things up
I will not be able to defrag the destination drive so not sure if doing transfers at the same time will increase the change of fragmentation?

eg: 3 source drives, all have a mix of large, small and tiny files

Source Drive A -->
Source Drive B --> destination Drive D
Source Drive C -->

If you use TeraCopy it will queue the transfers instead of doing them simultaneously.

 

[Soogs]

thanks for the replies.

im using a windows machine to copy files between 2 retropie set ups and from windows to nas / nas to windows
wish I knew about this TeaCopy sooner

thanks again

 

[GGizmo]

I usually make a folder of the same name on the destination and then transfer the files inside the directory in one go. It seems faster than pulling the directory folder across.