External hard drives...

[tim...]

what has a crooked sales outlet got to do with computer engineers?

[Tim Streater]

If you're doing a reglar, automatic, backup then the speed doesn't matter particularly. And if it's set up to do incremental backups, then each one takes very little time.

Proper computers come with that sort of software as standard.

[tim...]

As per a previous discussion on the subject (that I started), it seems that

1tB SSDs devices are virtually unobtainable in the consumer space

It is vanishingly unlikley that Mr Numpty has just bought a new one, let alone already historically owned one

[tim...]

why should whether you dragged it or not, make any difference to a disk-to-disk copy. It only makes any difference for a directory to directory copy on the same disk

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well no, they are fairly common now

[John Rumm]

1TB Thumb drives are typically not yet available, but proper external 2.5" drive caddies with 1TB SSDs is are fairly easy to get.

Well quite, but it only seems fair to ask, since the chances of him actually volunteering any useful information are slim!

[John Rumm]

ok, answer this:

Google maps tells me its going to take 3 hours to get to the office, is that right?

[alan_m]

Hard drive lives matter!

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

my computers are road kill...I have been told...

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

be wurser if it was black slave and white master.....tee hee

[John Rumm]

Because you incur significant overhead on file creation - especially with lots of small files, when compared to say a disk clone style copy.

Also windows will also spend sometimes significant amounts of time enumerating the directory tree you are copying so that it can give you a progress dialogue with an estimate of total time - so that slower than doing robocopy from the command line for example.

[John Rumm]

Given the setup you are using, using something like Acronis true image[1] will clone one drive to the other faster than you will be able to do with a file copy. However the USB2 interface will still limit the maximum speed.

[1] The trial version will do a drive to drive clone.

(for reference I was cloning some 120GB SSD drives onto new 256GB drives

- one drive on the internal SATA bus in the PC - the new one on a USB to SATA adaptor. Doing it with the new drive on a USB2 interface was taking

40 mins or so, and on a USB3 interface about 8 mins)

[GB]

They have to be fairly sophisticated and computer literate to get the drives to misreport their size? TBH, I've never tried. Perhaps it's easy?

[Tim Streater]

I wanted to know whether Chummy was doing it via D/D or something like CCC which I suppose might be faster, if more obscure.

[Tim Streater]

Fine. But don't come whining to us about it.

[GB]

Just bang the drives together really hard. That'll learn them.

You were clearly bored and asking a question for attention, rather than because you wanted the answer.

[GB]

:)

It's clearly not fair, and you should write to Boris to do something about it. Plus, move closer to your office. That commute must be killing you.

[Andrew]

Wasn't Tim Berners-Lee was it ?.

[Jim GM4 DHJ ...]

yes it was a waste of time...

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

Ballox