copying many files

[Tristan Lefebure <]

Hi,

These days I often have to copy several million of files from one folder to 
another on the same computer (and usually the same disk), and it takes a 
while with a regular 'cp' approach (several hours).

The files are rather small (~400 Bites), so I think that most of the time is 
spent creating the files, not copying the data. Would you have a suggestion 
to speed up the process?

I've already tried to create a tar archive, but it also take a while create 
and extract the archive. Should I use another file system (I use ext3 with 
ubuntu 7.10).

Thanks for any help!
-- 
Tristan Lefebure

Population Medicine & Diagnostic Sciences
College of Veterinary Medicine
Cornell University

phone: (607) 253 4228

http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tnl7/