Teracopy Beta
Casio Bauman
(Note 2017: Copy speed difference depend on many complex factors and differences usually come down to testing different things without realising. Very occasionally there are esoteric edge cases which make one program faster than another sometimes and vice-versa other times. This post is also from 2007, and even back then the 80% difference the author states was not something others could reproduce. You should check if the speed differences apply on your machine, and with the types of data you copy, and not just use a different program because someone said it was faster. You may also want to use TeraCopy because you like its UI or other features, of course. --Leo).
Directly below are buttons you can paste to your toolbar to copy and move files using TeraCopy. Below the buttons you will also find instructions on how to make Opus use TeraCopy whenever you drag & drop files. You can use any of all of these methods; whatever suits you.
From now on, when you drag and drop a file, TeraCopy will kick in, and do the work for you. The only thing is that it will NOT do a move using this method. It will only do a copy, no matter what drive you are dropping the file on.
One more thing you can do is add TeraCopy to the Drop-Menu that appears if you drag & drop using the Right mouse button. (Thanks to Steje for this one.) If you want to do that then here are the steps:
Maybe the 'integrated Dopus support' that Oblias mentioned in the new TeraCopy beta might be that it will 'intercept' the Dopus copy and move functions and replace them the way it can with Explorer...?
When the Edit box pops up, replace [copy movewhensame] with
[C:\Program Files\TeraCopy\TeraCopy.exe Copy filem destpath] , then click OK to save the change. Of course, do NOT use the [ ]s , just the text only.
Now, just click on OK, then close to get back to Opus proper. So, from now on, when you drag and drop a file, TeraCopy will kick in, and do the work for you. The only thing is, that it will NOT do a move using this method. It will only do a copy, no matter what drive you are dropping the file on.
If you want to be able to do a move, then you will have to do more editing. Go back again to to Settings/Filetypes/All Files and Folders. Edit that, and make sure the Events tab is active. This time, double-click on the Drag-and-Drop + Shift entry. The command to be entered this time is
[C:\Program Files\TeraCopy\TeraCopy.exe Move filem destpath] , again without the brackets [ ] . Save everything as before, and now when you do a Shift + Drag-and-Drop, TeraCopy will do a move, no matter what drive you drop the file on.
[quote="steje"]Maybe the 'integrated Dopus support' that Oblias mentioned in the new TeraCopy beta might be that it will 'intercept' the Dopus copy and move functions and replace them the way it can with Explorer...?
What I was referring to by 'integrated Dopus support' was that the button codes are now supported by TeraCopy when you install it. During installation, it will ask you if you'd like to integrate buttons into Opus.
Just one thing needs to be taken into account - the time taken to load a copy of TeraCopy when executing it for a small file. This can easily exceed the time it would have take to do the job using the built-in DOpus functions.
I think the ultimate solution would be for GPSoft to reach some sort of accomodation with the TeraCopy developer, to permit absolute integration of his technology into DOpus. I did actually suggest this to Greg, but I'm afraid he was less than enthusiastic. Here is his reply to my suggestion:
"Opus already has quite efficient copy functions and you can adjust the copy buffers to suite your system etc, and a copy queue system has been planned for some time now but just not made it yet. Adding a copy queue to Opus is quite complicated because of the multi-threading but it's one of the next features."
...all of which was a bit disappointing. Obviously, if TeraCopy Basic can be had for free by anyone prepared to download it, the developer is unlikely to charge GPSoft US$19.95 a copy for the technology, and I seriously doubt that fiddling with copy buffers will give the huge performance boost (up to 80% quoted) that TeraCopy offers. Finally, it comes complete with a copy queue, one of the oft-requested enhancements for DOpus, which Greg acknowledges.
The queuing that it provides is clearly a useful feature but I'm interested to know what it does differently when copying files. On large file copies between my HDDs, Opus typically maxes out to the theoretical limit of my SATA2 drives (60MB/s) so I can't see how anything would be faster. When copying lots of small files you are typically limited by the speed the OS can create files and set attributes and so on.
(Setting the attributes and timestamps ends up taking a significant amount of time with lots of small files. This turned out to be why some people felt Opus was slower than Explorer at copying a while ago, but I think most people want those things to be preserved when copying. Opus makes it optional and when the attribute/timestamp stuff was turned off it was identical to the Explorer copy speed.)
Do you guys find that Opus doesn't tend to max out your drives when copying large files? Or is the speed-up from small files? Or are we talking about copying to something else like network drives or removable media?
How it works, I have no idea. And re: your SATA2 question, I do not know that either, not having SATA2 drives to test with. So, maybe TeraCopy does not affect those running only SATA2 drives, I cannot say. Perhaps the speed increase is only apparent on systems using IDE drives?
Why not grab a copy of TeraCopy and test it out on your system? Then let us know the results you get with your fast drives? I would be interested in knowing the result from you. Just think that if, somehow, TeraCopy could increase your speed too, wouldn't that rock?
Actually, I'm not going to answer your question but I'd like to repeat it.
I got so enthusiastic upon reading posts here that I downloaded the tool and tested it myself. My findings didn't live up to my expectations, and I didn't post here in order not to disappoint others, but I really timed the copy operations using large and small files on my SATA2 7200 drive and from SATA2 7200 to USB 5400. It's not that I found no difference but in some tests Dopus was faster then TeraCopy.
Would you try testing the speeds just using one drive? Copy a large file, let's say a file that is about 700M from one directory on any of your SATA2 drives, to another directory on that same drive, using TeraCopy. Time how long it takes. Then do the same exact thing, but using Opus's built in copy function.
However, since Leo's last post, I decided to be a lot more stringent in evaluating my results. I have now carried out a series of tests, mostly with large files, some from one folder to another on the same drive, some from one drive to another on the same PC, and some from a network node to my PC, some from one network node to another, and finally a collection of files, small and large from one network node to another.
The upshot - for me there is almost no difference between DOpus and TeraCopy, with one exception. In the (relatively rare) case of repeating a copy, between two folders on the same drive, DOpus took advantage of caching, and the result was almost instantaneous, whereas TeraCopy took the same time to repeat a copy as it did initially.
Last September, I asked why aren't Windows file copies restartable? It's a huge productivity killer - and very frustrating - when you're copying a large file from a network share or over a VPN and the copy fails when it was 80% complete. At that point, your file copy has just failed. Try again and hope it works this time.
Back in January, Ralph linked to TeraCopy. I gave it a shot and found that it really did work pretty well. Being difficult, I just had to look around for something else. I tried a bunch of alternatives including Copy Handler and various Robocopy GUI's. TeraCopy's my favorite.
TeraCopy's shell integration into Explorer is really smooth. For instance, I'll select a bunch of big files in one Explorer window and hit control-c, then hit control-v in another Explorer window and TeraCopy's copy dialog pops up. Here we can see the progress of each file as well as the entire group:
Notice that nice Pause button. Also nice is that, should my VPN drop or the copy fail for any other reason, that button changes to Resume and I can continue the copy from where it left off. Hitting the More button in the lower left expands the dialog to show the complete status of the copy:
The latest official release of TeraCopy is 1.22, although there is a TeraCopy 2 beta release available which adds some nice new features - it's nice to use a product that's under pretty active development. I've been really happy with TeraCopy - give it a shot!
TeraCopy Timer - A program of mine, front end really, that I have been working on (on & off) for some time, but not shared here before, that I recall. Third party program TeraCopy is required.
BE ADVISED - I still use an older version of TeraCopy (v2.27), a goody but an oldy, so have only tested my program with that. It may work with the newer v3.xx, or may be easily adjusted to do so, but I have not yet gone that route. Likewise, I only use it with Win 7 and Win XP, but I don't imagine there should be any issues with newer Windows. Add to that, my program being devised and created in AutoIt v3.3.0.0.
I devised my program for two main reasons really, based on giving me greater control, using the Free version of TeraCopy, which has some limitations (perhaps even with the paid full version). My program utilizes the features of the TeraCopy command-line.
2. I wanted to automate delays between jobs, allowing all HDD's to rest periodically when doing large and lengthy jobs. Letting HDD's heat up too much, can have tragic results or considerably shorten their lifespan. Prevention is better than cure or just relying on monitoring software etc.
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