Fastest Copy Methods ?

I am trying to copy a 17,000 image / 300GB iPhoto Library to a NAS....I am looking at a Finder window that tells me it will take another 841 hours !!

Is there a faster copy method I can use ? Will a unix cp work faster than Finder ?

Follow on question....can I get a cp from Terminal to copy a file with spaces in the filename: "iPhoto Library" ?

It should take that long - although copying lots of small files takes longer than a few large files.

Can you attach to the NAS directly, rather than airport.

AS a comparison, it did take about 24 hours for me to copy 1.5 TB of files over 100 Base T ethernet when restoring a server from a back-up

Yep, the time is due to the connection to the storage device, not the copy method. Any mass copy over wifi will crawl.

Perhaps dd might add some speed. It does things a bit more directly than cp:

# dd if=/directory/with/files of=/target/directory bs=blocksize

if= Represents the source or input device.

of= Represents the target or output device.

In "terminal.app" you can run a man dd for more options.

bluemoon222 said:

Follow on question....can I get a cp from Terminal to copy a file with spaces in the filename: "iPhoto Library" ?

Click to expand...

Use quotes:

cp -p "iPhoto Library" "iPhoto Library-2"

thanks for the insights.....the network is wired not wireless but I take your point I am waiting on serialisation time for the library and not a lot I can do to help.

If the current Finder copy fails I might just give the cp " " a whirl and if that also fails then a man dd will be my next port of call....thanks for the insights