Dolphin and large folders, bad performance

[Guest]

When I use Dolphin to copy large folders, the memory consumptions is large and the systems get very slow. Some marks:
Job to copy: 200 Gigabytes in 2 000 000 files in 200 000 folders
Memory usage: 2 Gigabyte RAM usage after reading folder tree, additional swap memory of 2 Gigabyte after writing destination memory tree, resulting in a file copy rate of approximately 1 file per second -> job will finish next year , may be later
I have two instances of dolphin open and drag&drop the folder to copy.
Source is SATA XFS, destination USB NTFS

Is there an option or an alternate file manager that copies file by file or folder by folder with less memory usage?

[dibl]

Re: Dolphin and large folders, bad performance

Have you tried the bash "cp" command? You could try copying only 1 sub-folder with 100 files in it, to the ntfs drive, for example, and time that to estimate the full copy time. You might have to use the blinking of the LED on the external drive to estimate the duration of the copy, as you'll get the bash shell prompt back before the copy operation is completed.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Dolphin and large folders, bad performance

your destination is one part of the problem.

USB=slow, NTFS=ssslllllooowww

and yes dolphin isn't speedy by anyones mark.

I would suggest tar or rsync from the command line and let it run. Both are faster than cp or scp. Some people find rsync faster, others tar.

sudo rsync -azvv /path/source/ /path/destination

I think tar is faster and will preserve timestamps, permissions, and ownership. This command assumes you have navigated to the source directory:

sudo tar cf - * | ( cd /target; tar xfp -)

if there are hidden files among your source directory, try:

sudo tar cf - * .??* | ( cd /target; tar xfp -)

[Apollo9]

Re: Dolphin and large folders, bad performance

Be interesting to see what the root version of Krusader could do. When I want things to go faster I reboot into the Xfce desktop. It uses a lot less of everything then KDE so everything runs faster.

[Guest]

Re: Dolphin and large folders, bad performance

Using Oneiric, Dolphin takes several minutes to change to detail mode for 2300 files. With Oneiric Ubuntu, Nautilus takes a few seconds.

[nhtrader]

Re: Dolphin and large folders, bad performance

I too had the same expience. So I chose to open my PC and add the HDD.
(note I had over a million files to transfer)

1. remove the HDD from the External HDD Enclosure
2.shutdown PC
3. connect it directly into my PC's motherboard (2 connections: power and data)
4. power on computer
5. open terminal and use commands:
sudo su
fdisk -l (need to get the device name for you newly add HDD. clue: look for device with NTFS)
mkdir /mnt/ntfs (create a destination folder. it must exist before you can mount HDD)
mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb1 /mnt/ntfs (hint: replace /dev/sdb1 with your device name. second, this command may need more options to be set. google to tweak this command)
exit (exit admin mode and return to user mode)

Now use dolphin to copy files to your destination folder: /mnt/ntfs
... or use terminal mode and use commands "rsync or cp"

\

[GreyGeek]

Re: Dolphin and large folders, bad performance

When I want smoking performance on folders with a large number of files in it, or to move large files from one location to another, I open a Konsole and issue
mc

It's in the repository. Extracted from the man:

Overview
The screen of the Midnight Commander is divided into four parts. Almost all of the screen space is taken up by two directory panels. By default, the second line from the bottom of the screen is the shell command line, and the bottom line shows the function key labels. The topmost line is the menu bar line. The menu bar line may not be visible, but appears if you click the topmost line with the mouse or press the F9 key.

The Midnight Commander provides a view of two directories at the same time. One of the panels is the current panel (a selection bar is in the current panel). Almost all operations take place on the current panel. Some file operations like Rename and Copy by default use the directory of the unselected panel as a destination (don't worry, they always ask you for confirmation first). For more information, see the sections on the Directory Panels, the Left and Right Menus and the File Menu.

You can execute system commands from the Midnight Commander by simply typing them. Everything you type will appear on the shell command line, and when you press Enter the Midnight Commander will execute the command line you typed; read the Shell Command Line and Input Line Keys sections to learn more about the command line.

Mouse Support
The Midnight Commander comes with mouse support. It is activated whenever you are running on an xterm(1) terminal (it even works if you take a telnet, ssh or rlogin connection to another machine from the xterm) or if you are running on a Linux console and have the gpm mouse server running.

When you left click on a file in the directory panels, that file is selected; if you click with the right
button, the file is marked (or unmarked, depending on the previous state).

Double-clicking on a file will try to execute the command if it is an executable program; and if the
extension file has a program specified for the file's extension, the specified program is executed.

Also, it is possible to execute the commands assigned to the function key labels by clicking on them.

If a mouse button is clicked on the top frame line of the directory panel, it is scrolled one page up.
Likewise, a click on the bottom frame line will cause scrolling one page down. This frame line method works also in the Help Viewer and the Directory Tree.

The default auto repeat rate for the mouse buttons is 400 milliseconds. This may be changed to other values by editing the ~/.mc/ini file and changing the mouse_repeat_rate parameter.

If you are running the Midnight Commander with the mouse support, you can get the default mouse behavior (cutting and pasting text) by holding down the Shift key.

Aside from apt, dpkg, cd and locate, mc is about the only other command line tool that I use.