34 replies to this topic 2 votes

[Yogurth]

15 Free File Copy Tools Tested for the Fastest Transfer Speeds

Most of us know that it is possible to copy or move files and folders in Windows by either using your mouse to copy and paste, drag and drop or by using the keyboard. Obviously the single biggest factor affecting the speed of any transfer is what you’re copying from or to such as hard drives, SSD’s, USB sticks, network etc. Another factor is how Windows itself deals with these operations, and all versions of Windows have never been quite as efficient at it as they could be.



With this in mind, it is entirely possible to shorten the duration of any copying or moving of files if you use a piece of third party software to take over operations instead of relying on the Windows built-in function. Not only can this help the speed of transfers, but you can also get other benefits like better information, queuing copies, pausing, skipping, and dealing with problem files far better than what Windows does.

We were curious to find out just how fast some of these programs actually are when copying and moving files around in Windows, so have gathered together 15 freeware tools to have a closer look. A few simple tests were carried out to try and determine which file copying tools are the fastest at performing file transfers in a few different real world scenarios. To try and cover some common file copy operations, 3 tests were conducted;

Test 1: Copies a number of small to medium files from one HDD to another.

4GB totaling 24,185 files / 6193 folders with sizes of a few bytes to 320MB.

Test 2: Copy 2 large files using the same source and destination as test 1.

2x Windows 8 ISO’s (x86 and x64) totaling 5.8GB.

Test 3: Copy over a 10/100 LAN network to the same destination as tests 1 and 2.

450MB totaling 5665 files / 723 folders with sizes of a few bytes to 320MB.

The source drive was a 10,000 RPM WD Raptor and the destination was a standard 7200 RPM SATA drive, both defragged. All the 3rd party software was run using their default transfer settings on Windows 7 64-bit. Each test was run twice and an average of the times was taken.



Full test:

http://www.raymond.c...transfer-speed/



Interesting and useful article, with one surprising result concerning Windows 8.

[Simon-]

Look Windows 8 has it's issues, but performance and stability is not one of them. It works fine for most people and it will be more hardware dependant than anything. A few seconds different isn't going to make much difference.

[virtorio]

Simon-, on 02 January 2013 - 11:06, said:

Look Windows 8 has it's issues, but performance and stability is not one of them. It works fine for most people and it will be more hardware dependant than anything. A few seconds different isn't going to make much difference.

That doesn't mean their isn't value in looking into alternatives. Explorer has never been the fastest method of copying files.

[DKAngel]

windows 8 beats windows 7 hands down in transfeers, its much much faster

[Sadelwo]

DKAngel, on 02 January 2013 - 11:35, said:

windows 8 beats windows 7 hands down in transfeers, its much much faster

And the ability to pause different transfers, something I loved about Ubuntu, is pretty neat.

[Avi]

DKAngel, on 02 January 2013 - 11:35, said:

windows 8 beats windows 7 hands down in transfeers, its much much faster

Not on the test machine used in the article, I guess.

[BajiRav]

[cork1958]

Wouldn't use a third party app to transfer files in amillion years. Seems rather redundant, to me. Even if one was much faster than another, a few seconds out of my life isn't going to kill me. I would see a third party program as just another reason to cause an issue, more than anything else.

[LUTZIFER]

I'm quite happy with Windows 7 transfer speed. I move stuff around constantly, usually fairly big downloads, on a regular basis..
Mere seconds to throw half a dozen CDs or more from one drive to another, which I do many times a day,
or half a minute or so for around 25 gigs of vids, so I can't complain.

[ArialBlue]

That is one hella poor designed site

[+Evolution]

A test one a single machine hardly proves anything. For all we know the drivers could have had a large impact.... at least he decided to run each test twice.

[Rickkins]

cork1958, on 02 January 2013 - 12:46, said:

Wouldn't use a third party app to transfer files in amillion years. Seems rather redundant, to me. Even if one was much faster than another, a few seconds out of my life isn't going to kill me. I would see a third party program as just another reason to cause an issue, more than anything else.

Oh good grief....

[Dot Matrix]

Who needs all this third party junk?

[farmeunit]

cork1958, on 02 January 2013 - 12:46, said:

Wouldn't use a third party app to transfer files in amillion years. Seems rather redundant, to me. Even if one was much faster than another, a few seconds out of my life isn't going to kill me. I would see a third party program as just another reason to cause an issue, more than anything else.

For me it's for resuming and pausing transfers. What happens when you run out of space with Windows? It just fails, and you have no idea where it left off.

[Dot Matrix]

farmeunit, on 03 January 2013 - 01:37, said:

For me it's for resuming and pausing transfers. What happens when you run out of space with Windows? It just fails, and you have no idea where it left off.

That's why I check before starting any file transfers.