You Guys should use Robocopy its the best

Winuser · Aug 13, 2023

DigitalGoat said:
There might well be other utilities that are quicker/ more effecient/ easier to use than Robocopy

A GUI program might be easier. I don't know about being quicker or more effecient. Once I changed the source drive from the USB 2.0 port to the USB 3.0 port Robocopy zipped right alone. Because I started and stopped Robocopy I'm not sure of the actual time it took. I do know that after switching to the USB 3.0 port Robocopy from start to finish took about 3 hours 20 minutes. Even if I have to add the time when I was copying with the drive plugged into the USB 2.0 port it was still not even close to 1.2 days. I'm going to do a test and see how long Teracopy now estimates the time it will take.

Winuser · Aug 13, 2023

Firas said:
You mentioned that you have approximately 2TB, and that's a significant amount.

I just took a look in drive properties and to my surprise it showed the used size as being 2.85 TB.

DigitalGoat · Aug 13, 2023

Winuser said:
A GUI program might be easier. I don't know about being quicker or more effecient. Once I changed the source drive from the USB 2.0 port to the USB 3.0 port Robocopy zipped right alone. Because I started and stopped Robocopy I'm not sure of the actual time it took. I do know that after switching to the USB 3.0 port Robocopy from start to finish took about 3 hours 20 minutes. Even if I have to add the time when I was copying with the drive plugged into the USB 2.0 port it was still not even close to 1.2 days. I'm going to do a test and see how long Teracopy now estimates the time it will take.

As long as you are in the mood to experiment try adding the switch /MT:12 or /MT:16 or /MT:24 to see if you can improve copy speed any, the /MT: switch tells Robocopy how many threads to use, for my system with a 20 thread CPU a setting of /MT:30 seems to produce the best results.
You can also add the switch /LOGriveLetter:\LogName.log for a summary of operations, substitute driveletter and LogName for something such as /LOG

:\Tuesday.Log as an example.

pparks1 · Aug 13, 2023

The first copy always takes the longest. Future copies are just the deltas, and go much faster. For all file operations, the number of files plays a bi difference. If you had 2TB of ISO files, and they were 4GB files each, it would copy much faster than hundreds of thousands of small files.

BrianInEngland · Aug 13, 2023

I just store my personal folders (docs, music, pictures) on a separate drive inside the OneDrive folder, and set it as the default save location. Any files I add/change get synced, I can go back to a previous version if needed or if I delete one I can it from the Recycle bin.

Every other day my folders also get backed up to an external SSD using Macrium. So I have a cloud copy and a local backup of my files.
Everything is automated (once setup) - I don't need to run a command or a script. It just does it.
No need for Robocopy here.

BrianInEngland · Aug 13, 2023

glasskuter said:
A long as one uses SOMETHING, that's what matters. Since I'm as much concerned (if not more so) about my windows install as I am about my files, I've been spoiled by system images. Years ago my only backup was a manual one of my user folder. If something happened I was "OMG OMG OMG." 3 days later I would still be working on getting everything back like it was. Nowadays, it's more "Ooh kaay" 15 minutes later, back in business. So yeah, I'm very spoiled....and lazy.

Yes system backups are vital as well, yet some people still think they don't need them!

Winuser · Aug 13, 2023

DigitalGoat said:
As long as you are in the mood to experiment try adding the switch /MT:12 or /MT:16 or /MT:24 to see if you can improve copy speed any, the /MT: switch tells Robocopy how many threads to use

The computer has 8 threads. If I increased the number to over 8 would it make a difference?

Winuser · Aug 13, 2023

If I wanted to just backup all new folders and fies I chanced the name of would Robocopy do that or would it backup everything? I'm going to be correcting some file names and I still have more content I need to encode and add to the drive.

TM21 · Aug 13, 2023

I'm so old I was backing up data files in DOS before robocopy was even a gleam in its author's eye. Or, any other so-called backup program for that matter.
My backup batch file is written using XCOPY and all I have to do it click a shortcut to it, for my daily or weekly backup.
And since it only ads new or changed files to my backup drive, the whole process takes only a few seconds.
Example:

XCOPY /D /S /C /I /H /R /K /Y/J "D:\My Docs\*.*" "E:\Backup Folders\Documents\"
XCOPY /D /S /C /I /H /R /K /Y/J "D:\My Pictures\*.*" "E:\Backup Folders\My Pictures\"

In this case, my E: drive is a 1TB spinner I use for my data backups. D: is the second (data only) partition on my 500GB SSD.
I keep NO data files on my C: drive. That's the worse possible place for data files.
I also have two Flash Drives that I back up to. So in all, I have three backups, in case one might fail. The E: drive is internal to my PC, while the Flash Drives are External.

DOS Lives! (at least, for those who are smart enough, or old enough, to use it)

TM

Winuser · Aug 13, 2023

I finished backing up the same files and folders using Teracopy. The backup took 4hrs and 11 minutes.

Winuser · Aug 13, 2023

I just finished reading a tip on how to make TeraCopy faster. It said to add TeraCopy to the exclude list in Windows Security. This will stop the files and folders from being scanned. The Mini PC is using Windows Defender so I'll give it a try the next time I use Teracopy on a large backup. I don't know if this can be or even needs to be done with Robocopy.

antspants · Aug 13, 2023

Winuser said:
add TeraCopy to the exclude list in Windows Security.

Absolutely

I’d add the destination drive also, whilst you’re copying over.

Winuser · Aug 13, 2023

antspants said:
Absolutely I’d add the destination drive also, whilst you’re copying over.

This is the process I'm doing. I'm using my desktop to encode my media to a USB HDD. When I'm finished I copy the folders to the HDD on the Mini PC over Wi-Fi. I was plugging the source HDD into the Mini PC to copy it to the HDD on the Mini. Because the Mini PC uses our TV as a monitor this limited me to when I could do the copy or to come right to the point, Never when my wife is watching her TV shows. I then check the drive on the mini for any spelling errors and arrange the folders in the order I need them. This is what I'm backing up. I almost lost all of my edited media when the NVMe drive died on the other Mini. What ever caused the NVMe drive to die also caused all of the files and folders on the USB HDD to lose ownership. I thought for sure they were gone forever. Now I have a backup of the edited content and if needed, the original encoded files. I have way to many hours in this project to want to start over. I have 2.85 TB of media files and I'm not even half way through. That's why I went with two 14 TB USB drives.I almost forgot the original encodes are spread out over three drives.

hdmi · Aug 14, 2023

Robocopy tends to slow down and start hogging system resources during the task after some period of time if you use it for copying a very large amount of data with the /MT option. TeraCopy has a similar problem of just erroring out during the task, also after some period of time, if you use it for copying a very large amount of data. I don't know exactly how many TB you need to be copying for these issues to start to occur with either one of these two different copy tools, nor know what additional circumstances may impact their behavior. I only know that I have observed it enough times on multiple different computers for me to have arrived at the final conclusion that, while they are still OK to use for transfer sizes up to a few TB, for larger sizes they just aren't worth the risk of waking up in the morning only to find out that the copying still hasn't been completed successfully. Add the fact that Robocopy doesn't have per file error logging (and the logging mangles special characters in the pathnames) so you can't just let it process the failed parts of the task again WITHOUT letting it process ALL the data again, and what you've got left is something quite the opposite of what the title of this old thread was trying to suggest. So, thanks but no thanks... I'll stick to FastCopy because it is reliable and it's fast, it has per file logging with proper UNICODE support (and supports long pathnames unlike XCOPY...) and the ability to store file hash codes for later (re)use also is golden. As an aside, I keep a very long list of subjects that keep popping up on this forum site not wholly dissimilar to how weeds keep popping up outside in the garden space, the number of repeat topics on this list is still smaller than the number of situations caused by Robocopy that were both cumbersome and time consuming to dissect and remediate... but it is getting there.

FirasKing Air · Aug 15, 2023

Winuser said:
I just finished reading a tip on how to make TeraCopy faster. It said to add TeraCopy to the exclude list in Windows Security. This will stop the files and folders from being scanned. The Mini PC is using Windows Defender so I'll give it a try the next time I use Teracopy on a large backup. I don't know if this can be or even needs to be done with Robocopy.

You are still thinking the wrong way
the speed of transfer is not dependent on the software you use.
This depends on the velocity of your hard drive.

hdmi · Aug 15, 2023

Firas said:
You are still thinking the wrong way

lol

Falok · Aug 19, 2023

For me Robocopy has some main limitations to be aware of:

By default, Robocopy operates in a single-threaded mode, which means it performs file copying and synchronization operations sequentially. This can lead to slower performance when dealing with a large number of files or directories. However, you can leverage the "/MT" option to enable multi-threaded copying, which improves performance by utilizing multiple threads.
Robocopy does not have built-in real-time synchronization capabilities. It is primarily designed for one-time or periodic file replication tasks. To achieve real-time sync, you would need to combine Robocopy with other tools or write custom scripts that periodically run Robocopy commands.
Robocopy lacks native file monitoring capabilities. It does not continuously monitor for changes in files or directories. Instead, you need to manually initiate Robocopy commands to perform file synchronization tasks. To automate file monitoring and initiate Robocopy commands based on changes, you would need to use external monitoring tools or scripts.
Robocopy does not provide built-in network bandwidth throttling options. If you need to limit the network usage for Robocopy operations, you would have to rely on additional network management tools or techniques.
Robocopy is a command-line tool, which means it operates solely through a command prompt or script. It does not have a graphical user interface (GUI) for easier interaction. This may make it less accessible for users who prefer a visual interface for managing file replication tasks.

All these limitations can be covered by some GUI alternatives to Robocopy like :
- Veeam Backup & Replication
- Nakivo Backup & Replication
- Gs Richcopy 360
- Resilio Sync

Winuser · Aug 19, 2023

Falok said:
For me Robocopy has some main limitations to be aware of:

By default, Robocopy operates in a single-threaded mode

From what I've read the default is 8 threads.

Winuser · Aug 19, 2023

Firas said:
You are still thinking the wrong way
the speed of transfer is not dependent on the software you use.
This depends on the velocity of your hard drive.

Either I'm misunderstanding your post or your misunderstanding my post. The tip I read wasn't talking about the transfer speed. It was saying that because the files are being scanned it will take longer to finish.

antspants · Aug 19, 2023

Winuser said:
From what I've read the default is 8 threads.

Yeah I am not sure where he is getting his information from.
”If you do not set a number next to the /MT switch, the default number will be 8, which means that Robocopy will try to copy eight files simultaneously. However, Robocopy supports 1 to 128 threads”

You Guys should use Robocopy its the best

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