Is it faster to move files between media in large pieces (i.e. many files and folders within an archive) or move them file-by-file? Is there a significant difference, considering that the file transfer completes with no errors?
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1"Better" how? Faster? Less chance of corruption? – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Nov 23 '11 at 01:10
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1possible duplicate of [Which is faster, copying everything at once or one thing at a time?](http://superuser.com/questions/252959/which-is-faster-copying-everything-at-once-or-one-thing-at-a-time) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Nov 23 '11 at 01:11
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@techie007 I meant faster. Edited! – iglvzx Nov 23 '11 at 01:11
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@techie007 This is not a duplicate, as they are asking about a queue of file transfers. I am asking about transferring the files as a single archive (e.g. *.zip), as opposed to file-by-file (individually). – iglvzx Nov 23 '11 at 01:13
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Do you count the time of archiving and unarchiving? which basically means one copy at each side. – mouviciel Nov 24 '11 at 09:09
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If contents and size are equal, then transferring one file should be faster due to only having one header/index entry to deal with. The setup and tear-down overhead of many files can add significant time to the transfers.
See this SU question for more info: Why does copying the same amount of data take longer if spread across many separate files?
