[SOLVED] How to set files transfer at low priority?

[DynV]

I have a (very) low priority folder, but large, that I need to be copied to an external drive. There is no time restriction for the transfer, but it should do little-to-no interference to the system, since its a user main system. In addition to a regular file transfer when the user is logged out, is there something to be done about this?

Thank you kindly

 

[thx1138v2]

AFAIK, every device (hdd, ssd, network, usb, etc) has to have a user logged in to do anything.

 

[USAFRet]

I have a (very) low priority folder, but large, that I need to be copied to an external drive. There is no time restriction for the transfer, but it should do little-to-no interference to the system, since its a user main system. In addition to a regular file transfer when the user is logged out, is there something to be done about this?

Thank you kindly

More info needed.

Is this a one time thing, or routinely?
How much data?
To what, and from what?

 

[punkncat]

Agree with the above.

The file transfer aspect itself is not going to use much by way of CPU or RAM in a "modern" system. Issue that can come up if it's from a HDD, and particularly the OS drive, that you are then having to deal with it scheduling disk access back and forth between what you are doing and the transfer.

Even by USB you should be able to move a REALLY big file across overnight, if this is a one time action.

 

[DynV]

AFAIK, every device (hdd, ssd, network, usb, etc) has to have a user logged in to do anything.

Then when the user stops using the system for some hours.

Is this a one time thing, or routinely?

Once per season on average I'd say.

How much data?

10s of Gb over a few hundreds of files, on the lower end ~100 Kb (could be lower in some cases), and the upper end ~300 Mb (could be higher in some cases).

To what, and from what?

OS SSD to ext HDD.

The file transfer aspect itself is not going to use much by way of CPU or RAM in a "modern" system. Issue that can come up if it's from a HDD, and particularly the OS drive, that you are then having to deal with it scheduling disk access back and forth between what you are doing and the transfer.

I had an inkling file transfers work by "burst" taking a lot of resources for a small (or tiny or minute) amounts of time, perhaps that could be spread out, and for the larger files, the automated system would transfer them by segment (but the result identical as the source).

 

[Rookie_MIB]

You could write a batch file (copy c:\user\*.pdf d:\user\ etc), then run Task Scheduler (assuming a Win7/10 system) to run it and set triggers such as whether the user is logged in or not, what username it's run under, time it is to be run etc...

I'm using it right now to trigger the start up of a few virtual machines under windows 10 on bootup that run PFSense and a CentOS backup to keep my media files backed up. Works great.

 

[gardenman]

I just gave this a quick try.

FastCopy

FastCopy Official site

fastcopy.jp

It's made in Japan but supports English with no issues. I copied a huge folder from one place to another, with the speed set down to 10%. Well, I started to about 5 minutes ago. So far it's copied about 128 mb. It slowly reads the files, then slowly writes the files using very little system resources. You can Pause the copy also. Maybe this could be a part of your answer.

As for the user account things, maybe a Scheduled Task as suggested above could work. FastCopy does support command line options.

 

[USAFRet]

Once per season on average I'd say.

"once per season" ?
Just let the thing run overnight.
Done.

 

[USAFRet]

My nightly backup routine might copy "10s of GB" at a time.
If I happen to still be using the system at that moment....there is zero performance issue.

Now, if I were a competitive gamer in the middle of a deathmatch...I wouldn't want that procedure doing its thing.
Any other use? There is no problem or performance hit.

 

[DynV]

FastCopy

FastCopy Official site

fastcopy.jp

It's made in Japan but supports English with no issues. I copied a huge folder from one place to another, with the speed set down to 10%. Well, I started to about 5 minutes ago. So far it's copied about 128 mb. It slowly reads the files, then slowly writes the files using very little system resources.

So far it seems to have no impact. If it continues, thanks again. I should let you know if it goes otherwise.