When i transfer files from one location to another, be it same disk or another one, on my computer, i want to preserve each and every property of the file. Like dates (created/accessed/modified), ntfs permissions, and whatever else there may be. I've heard of various tools like xcopy from MS or maybe others as well, but can this be done directly by using d. opus?
See Preferences / File Operations / Copy Attributes
in older dopus-versions sparse files were copied as full-size files. this could be corrected.
OK, just had a look here gpsoft.com.au/help/opus10/in ... ibutes.htm
I am only puzzled about the copy owner and update permissions. I'm not familiar with ownership, and as for the latter, i am not sure if i should tamper with permissions.
BTW does retaining the properties result in longer transfer times, since such infromation needs to be retrieved and rewritten?
What are sparse files, and how does this aply in my case?
If you are not sure about ownership and permissions then you probably just want the default behaviour, which is to not preserve them when copying or moving between devices, and to preserve them when moving on the same device.
Yes, copying certain metadata will slow things down, especially if you are copying lots of small files, since it adds a per-file overhead to copy each additional piece of data. The overheads are small but they can add up to a few seconds when copying thousands of files.
Sparse files are extremely esoteric and you can almost certainly ignore them. They are only used in special/unusual situations and have to be specially created by the software that generates them. They're typically used with huge databases or datasets, and managed by the programs which generate them rather than by hand in a file manager. I am not sure why they were brought up in this thread, to be honest.
(Edit/Update from the future: Support for preserving the "sparseness" of files is added in Opus 12.8.1 beta.)