Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Paul Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-11 Subject: Re: what is the fastest command line copy? Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2025 20:43:45 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 73 Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2025 01:43:46 +0100 (CET) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="c63e768c61852519c10a540608ff0618"; logging-data="2847252"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19uWAGxjX00gWvkp4TqO5ZrAaa1uNDQ9R4=" User-Agent: Ratcatcher/2.0.0.25 (Windows/20130802) Cancel-Lock: sha1:uj42W6yPRghSpX16tXd3IbWse1M= In-Reply-To: Content-Language: en-US Xref: csiph.com alt.comp.os.windows-11:18062 On Sat, 3/29/2025 8:03 PM, T wrote: > Hi All, > > It use to be robo copy for a mass copy of a > directory.  Does that still exist?  Or is > there something better? > > Many thanks, > -T > Robocopy is a standard part of the OS now, and is maintained. It started out as a hobby project. D:\ robocopy /? <=== start a Command Prompt, use this format, for *full* help ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ROBOCOPY :: Robust File Copy for Windows ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's still there. For a data directory in your own homedir, it would do a good job. There can be other scenarios were I would not recommend this approach. But a simple data directory, there are going to be a ton of approaches that would work. And robocopy has more than the normal number of switches, on the command line. I am not aware of a windows utility, that can tell you how "close" two structures are to one another. Most of the time, the differences after a copy, are in the security dimension. For example, if the copied tree relies on "inheritance" of a permission from a structure above itself, you would need for the copy routine to "convert" the security settings so they no longer relied on inheritance. And this is one way we tell "pros" at IT work, from wannabies. It's their treatment and understanding of permissions. When they quote you a recipe for a piece of work, you will spot commands that expose their knowledge of security. "I smash the permissions then I put the permissions back." That's the part of one of their scripts, that stands out from a script someone in this group would write as a lark. Like if I write you a script, it says "copy a b" and I pretend that's the only work required :-) But that might not always be sufficient for you to get your "cert". The security settings could be "quite wrong", depending on how careless you are. On Linux, we do "cp -Rp a b", and at least that command has a "preserve" option. Robocopy has that too. It's a start. Note - the following command used to be used on two FAT32 devices, to give some idea how long ago I was using this, and the COPYALL isn't really meant for FAT32 anyway. robocopy Y:\ F:\ /mir /COPYALL /dcopy:t /XJ /r:3 /w:2 /zb /np /tee /v /log:robocopy_y_to_f.log COPYALL equals /COPY:DATSOU and DATSOU is... D=Data A=Attributes T=Timestamps [ X=Skip alt data streams (X ignored if /B or /ZB) ] S=Security=NTFS ACLs O=Owner info U=aUditing info Paul