I recently discovered FastCopy and thought id mention it to you, it would be nice if dopus could copy/move files as fast, AFAIK FastCopy is quite a bit faster with its overlapped use etc.
Thanks!
There are lots of threads about this already, including that specific program, and the summary is that Opus (and most other things) will usually copy to the limits of your hardware, unless the hardware has quirks or there is something unusual going on. Sometimes one program is faster for some people's hardware and the files they are copying (and their antivirus and every other factor) while the same program may be slower for others. Often it's down to testing things properly, which is more complicated than you might expect with file copying.
The copy buffer and non-buffered I/O settings under Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced can be used to tweak things for certain scenarios.
Usually claims that one program is faster than another are really due to not testing properly. You need to ensure both programs have the same per-file overhead (e.g. copying attributes, timestamps and permissions), and you need to ensure that one program is not copying out of the filesystem cache after the other program put the data there.
You should also compare the time shown in Task Manager for the disk activity to start and fully stop (there may be a delay and spike at the end), to get an objective measure. Progress dialogs do not always measure time or speed in the same way, and in some programs close before the data is really flushed to disk.
If you think Opus isn't copying at full speed, we need details of the exact situation, and to be convinced you've tested things properly, as threads about copy speed are almost always a waste of both our time and yours. They do sometimes reveal a situation where we can improve things, so we are not completely closed to the idea or saying Opus is perfect, but you need to post more than "x is always faster than Opus", as that suggests you haven't really investigated things.
ur right i should've checked for other threads first sorry! i noticed this when copying firefox source code around to/from ssd type of thing, running a test now to get precise timings, let u know in about 2 hrs.
Copying source code will be dominated by the per-file overhead (e.g. whether attributes, permissions, metadata are copied or not), so the main thing is to ensure both programs are doing the same work there.
If you're using Opus 11, also note that Opus 12 has some improvements to reduce the overhead of updating the progress dialog when copying huge numbers of time files.
ok so from usb3 ext drive to ssd took 29 mins with dopus and 8 mins with FastCopy. Both set to 3GB buffer and antivirus real-time turned off, also reboots for both so no cache.
I only suggested it because the source code is right there and figured you could get some ideas, no offense intended, i love dopus! heh
have a nice day!
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Is that with Opus 11 or Opus 12?
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Newer versions of Opus 12 reduced the overhead imposed by the progress dialog in certain cases. There is still some overhead to updating the dialog, which is somewhat inherent, but a much less than in Opus 11, particularly for lots of tiny files and fast disks.
Hiding the progress dialog can be used to test if it is part of the reason things are slower. To try that, turn on all of these options, under Preferences / File Operations / Progress Indicators:
- Hide progress indicators from taskbar when jobs bar is visible
- Minimize progress indicators
- Display the jobs bar automatically when starting a new job
How are Opus and FastCopy configured, in terms of per-file overhead?
- Copying of timestamps, permissions, etc. Most of the options under Preferences / File Operations / Copy Attributes will slow things down considerably when copying a huge number of small files, and many file-copying programs skip some or all of them.
Hi Leo,
Well the "copy metadata" was already off in dopus 11. I just discovered alternate streams after all these years thanks to you, it's like watching a nature documentary and seeing something totally new wow! that's just amazing! that's a wild way to hide stuff if u want heh.
if anyone interested in that go here: http://www.flexhex.com/docs/articles/alternate-streams.phtml
Thanks for that tidbit!