Copy a large file or large number of files (MB/s)

[vanadiumboy]

Hello all,
I’m sure this has been mentioned before.

I run Kubuntu 22.04 but previous versions had this problem as well (18.04, 20.04, 20.10).
When I copy a large file or large number of files, sometimes, it shows the transfer speed (MB/s) and sometimes not.
It shows it on a popup window, at the bottom right, on a 5 cm x 3 cm window.

Why?

Is there a way to make it always show the transfer speed, like Windows does?

I sometimes copy from HDD to HDD,
sometimes from USB stick to HDD
or DVD to HDD.

[claydoh]

Check your notifications settings and see if you can disable "Show in task manager" and "Show in notifications" in Notifications section.

I'm afk so I can't check but this used to do o 5h3 trick.

[vanadiumboy]

Check your notifications settings and see if you can disable "Show in task manager" and "Show in notifications" in Notifications section.

I'm afk so I can't check but this used to do o 5h3 trick.

It is in Start -> Settings -> System Settings
On the left side, click on Notifications
On the right side, uncheck
Show in task manager
Show in notifications

Now, when I copy, I get a normal window. There is a progress bar which shows a percentage, which is helpful.
The odd thing is, sometimes it shows a transfer speed but a lot of times, it shows stalled while at the same time, the percentage goes up.

Well, in the screen shot, it show 179.7 MB/s for now.

[claydoh]

The 'classic' window vs the 'bubble' are showing the same exact data from the same sources, just with a different appearance.
You can configure the bubble to always show
I don't know exactly why it might not show a constant speed, particularly when transferring multiple files, but I do believe that it is likely related to disk caching, which IIRC Windows stopped doing a long time ago. If I am reading it correctly, the kernel isn't factoring in this cache, or reporting it to the DE when reporting speeds, or something.

Here is a discussion that isn't ancient on the topic that seems somewhat understandable:
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comment..._into_account/

basically, you can get instant up to date transfer speeds shown if you don't use the kennel's built-in caching, at the expense of much slower transfer speeds.
But then again, needing to 'eject' and wait a spell for the kernel to sync the files.......

[vanadiumboy]

I guess it is a feature that doesn’t exist in the kernel.

I had heard that one reason why Crystal Disk Mark (or whatever the name is) is Windows only is that a Win API exists to do sync read and writes to disk and that is how it measures disk performance.
I have seen those functions once.
I don’t know how they measure the performance at different tracks on the disk.

In the case of Linux, it needs a Linux API, sort of like fwrite_sync(.......)
I think there is fflush().

It is not pleasant ejecting a USB stick and waiting for an unknown amount of time with no feedback.

At least, when I write with K3B to a DVD, I can see the progress and it reach 100% and it ejects the DVD.

[Snowhog]

It is not pleasant ejecting a USB stick and waiting for an unknown amount of time with no feedback.

Removable Devices are identified in the left pane of Dolphin. There, you can click on the Safely Remove icon. Once it is safe to remove, a pop-up window appears telling just that.

Or, just click on the Disk & Devices icon in the System Tray and click on Safely remove.

[vanadiumboy]

Removable Devices are identified in the left pane of Dolphin. There, you can click on the Safely Remove icon. Once it is safe to remove, a pop-up window appears telling just that.

Or, just click on the Disk & Devices icon in the System Tray and click on Safely remove.

Yes, but as the guys in that Reddit forum say, you don't know when it is going to finish. Try writing a few GB to a USB 2.0 stick. It finishes copying quickly. When you click on eject, you'll have to wait maybe 15 min. It doesn't show any progress bar or timer. There is no feedback as to what is going on.

[Qqmike]

Yes, but as the guys in that Reddit forum say, you don't know when it is going to finish. Try writing a few GB to a USB 2.0 stick. It finishes copying quickly. When you click on eject, you'll have to wait maybe 15 min. It doesn't show any progress bar or timer. There is no feedback as to what is going on.

Yeah, I can confirm that behavior, on my Kubuntu 22.04. Sometimes, the writing is done, and the eject is quick; sometimes not. Also, sometimes, at random times, while copying is taking place, you may get an addition informational line telling you the rate of copying; but then that additional info may disappear, randomly.

[Schwarzer Kater]

I think jlittle wrote up an additional explanation somewhere why that is (too lazy to search for it ATM…).

[claydoh]

It is not pleasant ejecting a USB stick and waiting for an unknown amount of time with no feedback.

If I am remembering things correctly, back back in the day, this may be one of the reasons why MS stopped the 'safely eject' thing - people would ignore it and just yank out the thumb drive anyway, before it finished syncing..

KDE had a long reputation of having issues with corrupt data when copying/moving files, with quite a few extremely vocal complaints. They added I don't see them going back. There is visual feedback, but not a progress bar. I see a spinning icon here on plasma 5.27, and I doubt that there is any way to show yet another progress bar, if the OS(kernel) doesn't report it in a usable manner, if at all.

I just copied 27Gb data to a thumb drive, which took ages (10 mins or more?) for some reason (it is getting old), but the wait time for clicking the eject was a couple of heartbeats. I don't know if this is from the drive being formatted EXT4, which is journaled (the drive has an actual OS installed), maybe Fat32, exFAT or even ntfs have this slow syncing sort of issue?

[vanadiumboy]

If I am remembering things correctly, back back in the day, this may be one of the reasons why MS stopped the 'safely eject' thing - people would ignore it and just yank out the thumb drive anyway, before it finished syncing..

KDE had a long reputation of having issues with corrupt data when copying/moving files, with quite a few extremely vocal complaints. They added I don't see them going back. There is visual feedback, but not a progress bar. I see a spinning icon here on plasma 5.27, and I doubt that there is any way to show yet another progress bar, if the OS(kernel) doesn't report it in a usable manner, if at all.

Maybe those guys who just pull the USB stick out without clicking eject should read the manual that comes with their USB stick.
Win XP is nice enough to show a USB icon. You click on it and it says safely eject. Did some people not notice the icon? LOL.

I just copied 27Gb data to a thumb drive, which took ages (10 mins or more?) for some reason (it is getting old), but the wait time for clicking the eject was a couple of heartbeats. I don't know if this is from the drive being formatted EXT4, which is journaled (the drive has an actual OS installed), maybe Fat32, exFAT or even ntfs have this slow syncing sort of issue?

27 GB @ 10 min means 6 MB/s which is pretty good.
A USB 3.0 stick should be capable of 30 to 45 MB/s.
I have USB 3.0 sticks. One died. The other does 5 KB/s sometimes and sometimes 9 MB/s.
I tried exFAT, ext3, NTFS. I tried on Linux and Windows.
So, these sticks slow down when they get old. very bizarre.

[Snowhog]

I have USB 3.0 sticks. One died. The other does 5 KB/s sometimes and sometimes 9 MB/s.

That could be due to 'cheap' sticks. One should always stick to high quality, reputable manufacturers. I buy PNY exclusively.

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…]
Did some people not notice the icon? LOL. […]

Well, probably not.
You have found your way to an online computer (Linux) forum, so - without knowing you at all - I can surely say that you are an informed computer user in some way.
In my experience 95-99% of computer users trade their computers as something like an intelligent washing machine and don't waste to many thoughts on them…

[…] I tried exFAT, ext3, NTFS. I tried on Linux and Windows.
[…]

Better use exFAT for USB sticks if you don't have to preserve permissions, because ext3 and NTFS are journaled file systems (and additionally exFAT is kind of platform-agnostic).