Solution to slow copy of lots of files to FAT32 pendrive

[robertmo]

When copying lots of files to a FAT32 formatted USB flash memory pnedrive stick you can arrange them from smallest to largest and start copying.
Once it starts to slow down you can just stop copying, create a folder inside and another one inside the new folder and continue copying to the deepest folder till it slows down again. Now you can create folders again and copy again. And repeat until all is done.

I read that on Linux and Mac OS you don't have to use such tricks when copying to a FAT32 pendrive.

[ghisler(Author)]

FAT32 is very slow when putting a lot of files in a single directory, because it stores the directories as a linear list (NTFS stores them in tree form).

[robertmo]

well, one thing is that i have read that somehow it is only slow on windows while fast on linux and mac os

the other thing is that i don't know how it is done on linux and mac os but I figured out how to make it fast on windows (i slightly corrected the description in first post so that it is easier to understand.

[robertmo]

once all the files are already on pendrive you can move them out of the subfolders and delete empty subfolders.
if all the procedure that i described is done not manually but automatically by a program it would be blazing fast.

[nsp]

What you can do is to see if fastcopy or another tool behave the same as TC with slow copy.
If the trick you describe is right, what you can do is to copy each files into separate folder and move it down in a single command. TC unfortunately is not able to be scripted to do multiple command for each selected files...
You can try to use TCBL to create a batch that will do what you propose.

in tcbl.ini create the following

Code: Select all

[copy2PenDrive]
pre=md $1_tmp_
pre=cd /d $1_tmp_
cmd=copy $f .
cmd=mv $n ..
end=cd ..
end=rmdir _tmp_

Create user command and/or button

Code: Select all

command:<path to>\tcbl.exe
parameters:-ei  %L  copy2PenDrive %T

you will see in notepad the generated batch if all is ok you save and close to execute. For next run, just remove e in first -ei

-edited to use tcbl command

[robertmo]

FastCopy and TeraCopy behave the same way as TC
Which is actually interesting cause my trick is basically making a tree (so doing it the NTFS way as i understand it)
So I guess Mac and Linux may also be doing it similar way.
It would be strange if nobody adapted this method to Windows in some kind of copying application.

[ghisler(Author)]

You could switch the flash behaviour from "optimized for removal" to "optimized for speed" in the device manager. Then Windows will use a write cache. B but you will have to remove the stick via system tray before unplugging it. Otherwise the data could get corrupted.