Mega Cp — Files !!better!!
cat /source/hugefile.mkv > /destination/hugefile.mkv If you want to know your exact speed (MB/s) and ETA, pipe through pv (Pipe Viewer).
cp -r /source /destination Then you wait. And wait. Your terminal freezes. Your disk thrashes. You realize you have no idea if it’s working or if it has silently crashed. mega cp files
We’ve all been there. You need to duplicate a 20GB database dump, a 50GB virtual machine image, or a folder containing 500,000 small website files. You type the trusty old command: cat /source/hugefile
Stream them as a single archive.
pv /source/50gb.vmdk > /destination/50gb.vmdk This gives you a beautiful, real-time progress bar: [==>] 45% ETA 0:02:15 1.2GB/s The worst scenario for cp -r is a folder with millions of tiny files (like a node_modules folder or a cache directory). cp has to ask the filesystem for permission for every single file . Your terminal freezes
