Copying in El Capitan

[navaira]

Sorry if this has been discussed somewhere, I didn't see any thread about it.

After endless hassles with Finder this is actually the most important new feature for me in El Capitan: resume copying. I've been fighting with a hard drive that would overheat, trying to copy a 1.4 TB backup to it. And I would tear my hair out and scream seeing that at 1.2 TB it stopped copying and I can't resume. AARRRGGHGHHHH. Is this really better in Cappy? Or, Gods forbid, has the uber-revolutionary idea of "pause/resume copying" been introduced?

Thanks for any response!

 

[MikhailT]

It is really unlikely the resume copying would help in your case. It only works if you intentionally pause it.

If it stopped for any other reasons, you are not likely to have the ability to resume.

However, if Apple did manage to allow you to resume, than that means they did something far more better, they've optimized the file system operations.

In the future, avoid using Finder, use terminal to do this, like rsync. It is far more efficient and less prone to issues. Plus with rsync, you can do increment sync if you want.

 

[Draeconis]

If I recall, HFS+ can only actually do one file system task at a time, and the Finder method for copying isn't exactly verbose.

Using 'cp' is fast, and basically the same, use cp -v to see where your file transfer might be going wrong
'rsync' is a great tool too, I usually use 'rsync -rtpc --progress' as this doesn't just copy the files, but does a checksum, and copies time and permission data.

 

[DKZ]

Forklift can do what you want.

 

[navaira]

I know other applications can, I just wish Finder got its ish together. Thanks for all the suggestions!

(In the meantime I managed to copy my 1.4 TB backup in one go, still wouldn't mind improved copying routine.)

 

[PowerBook-G5]

Is the issue the overheating hard drive, or just the sheer amount of data being transferred? If it's the hard drive overheating, get an old PC heat sink, put the drive on it, and blow a fan across it. That's what I do with some of my portable drives when erasing/zeroing them out so that they don't overheat/create bigger issues for me (and possibly my house).

 

[Partron22]

I'd trust a 'resumed' copy just as far as I'd trust an 'unloaded' pistol.

 

[navaira]

I solved the problem by placing the drive on the bottom of the case, next to a fan, and keeping the case open. It was 3 hours of copying. Now, in normal use, nothing overheats.

As for resume copy, muCommander can do it (I don't trust it with backups though) and so can most FTP clients, it's not really a new functionality nobody ever thought about before.