1

I'm on OS X, and I'm copying a large amount of data from one partition to another. Because of the nature of a magnetic disk, I feel this would go much faster if I can get 'cp' to use a huge buffer of a few hundred megs.

Is this easily possible at all? I'm copying several directories recursively.

1 Answer 1

0

No matter what you do in between, shuffling data within solid-state memory chips, the processes of reading and writing a magnetic/mechanical disk, which requires physically moving pieces of metal, will take orders of magnitude more time, and there's no way to avoid that.

2
  • 1
    Well I figure if the disk reads 100 megs, moves the head, and then writes should be much faster than doing this for every couple of kb's. This is very easily testable.
    – Evert
    Feb 16, 2012 at 12:35
  • Random access is just faster that sequential access
    – Evert
    Feb 16, 2012 at 12:36

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .