Start the second "copying" action after first is finished?

[wguidero]

I'm moving a bunch of data from a HD to an SSD just by copying and pasting folders. I don't think it's good to overwhelm the drive/s with both tasks (maybe I'm wrong?) running at once (two large folders 200gb and 100gb.) I want the second transfer ("copying" running action) to start automatically while I'm gone (idle). Is there a way to perform this for next time?

 

[reedo_43]

300gb should be no issue at all. Done it many times.

 

[MCMunroe]

It is dumb that windows does all the copy actions in tandem. Why doesn't it just queue them up? Spinning HDs really don't like the multiple files simultaneously.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

The eggheads in Redmond have not implemented a queue feature into Windows file transfers yet, so short of 3rd party utilities and software, you're stuck performing this task manually.

I would not have both folders copy simultaneously, unless you just like forcing the spinning media drive to perform a lot more work, and have both transfers take more time to complete.

If you're not going to be around to start the second transfer, and time to completion is not a big issue, it certainly shouldn't hurt anything to have both transfers going simultaneously. If you were working with a spinning media drive that was near the end of it's life, I would reconsider adding extra strain, but otherwise, it's really your call how you ultimately choose to go about things.

3rd party solutions:

Copy Handler

TeraCopy

 

[wguidero]

Thank you so much!

Yes, they really need to get on that for a future update. Can't believe that's not a thing yet.

So it won't "shorten the life" that much or at all? Just will make it harder on the drive to perform two tasks at once?

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

The head has to spend a much higher portion of it's time being positioned from one read location to another when you ask a spinning media drive to copy from more than a single location.

Normally, when a drive isn't overly fragmented, the head seeks to the beginning of the transfer and then doesn't end up moving a whole lot. This isn't the case when you copy two or more things at once. The head seeks to the first location, starts copying, then at some point, usually determined by the copy algorithm, seeks to the second copy location, begins copying there for an amount of time, then moves on to any further copy points, or back to the original location.

This seeking is a big waste of time. You can visibly see it in transfer rates when copying from multiple locations. The sum of the multiple transfers will never equal the total of a single transfer. I would put the overhead in the neighborhood of 20% speed reduction, using back of the napkin math. It will always vary per individual hardware device, but in no case will multiple, simultaneous transfers ever be better than queuing or sequentially started transfers.

As far as damage to the mechanical drive, it's unlikely you could even measure the impact on useful lifespan for most consumers. I would only concern for drives that are mission critical, are near end of life, or routinely see heavy usage. Drives that are subject to high duty cycles should already have some sort of mitigation in place to reduce workload as much as possible.