FC not copying multiple files at one time?

[steve...@gmail.com]

Hi, I"m using FC v3.13 on Windows 7 x32 on computers with 4GB RAM. No other applications are running at the same time.

I'm mostly copying files to and from a network CIFS server to a Windows 7 x32 computer to an external disk connected with USB3.

I typically copy hundreds of files at a time, split up in a few hierarchical directories - I just copy the top level of the directories. The files themselves tend to be about 100MB iin size. So a typical full copy is about 50GB composed of 500 files, for example. FC is faster than Windows no doubt! But i wish it could be a little faster.

I think the CIFS server is overloaded - every 10 or 20 files one will hang and fail (FC says ReadFile an internal error occurred.1359). This is not FCs fault, I get the same behavior when doing a simple Windows drag and drop copy, and of course that's much worse because it waits for a person to tell it to resume copying the other files.  With FC or Windows copy, the files that fail will work a few minutes later when I try them again. I get this same behavior on several different workstations with that same server, so I think the problem is on the server side and out of my control.

So, what are the best settings for FC? I don't want to run multiple instances of FC if I can avoid it, but I'd love FC to be trying several copies at once, so if one copy is being hung up on one file the others can be successful. But it looks to me like only one file is ever being copied at a time, even though I'm using the following settings. Any suggestions?

Buffer: 1023 MB

Speed Control: Full Speed

Nonstop (yes)

Verify (no)

Estimate (yes)

Diff HDD mode

ACL (no)

Alt Sream (no)

Filter (no)

Max I/O size 256

Num of overlap i/o: 16

OS Cache: NO

When I run FC, only a single file at a time ever shows on the UI under the include and exclude areas - does that mean only a single file is being copied at a time? Or does the UI only show a single file even if several are being copied at that exact moment?

Thanks! -Steve

[Hiroaki SHIROUZU]

In unstable environment, I recommend to use...

"Num of overlap I/O" : 2 or 4

"Max I/O" : 8 or 16

(If you can use it,  but you have still the problem, I recommend to use 1 for Num of overlapped I/O. (but it will be slow...))

By the way, FastCopy use overlapped I/O (issue multiple I/O requests at the same time) but it works only in reading a file (not inter files).

[steve...@gmail.com]

Thanks for the recommended settings, I'll try them. I can see I was mistaken about FCs ability to copy more than one file at a time.

Two follow-up questions then:

(1) There is some time-out period where FC "gives up" when a file copy isn't working, and goes to the next file. Is there a way for me to change this time? In my situation, I'd like FC to quickly stop copying a file when there is a problem and just show it as an error and go to the next file. Is there any way for me to do this?

(2) In my original question I said I didn't want to run multiple instances of FC because of complexity. But perhaps I should try this?  Given the types of files I"m copying, any suggestions on settings? 

Thank you very much for the software and your help on this BB. -Steve (Cambridge, USA)