When transferring a file from one drive to another or within the same drive I always noticed that using Copy/Paste takes much longer than Cut/Paste, with an added hard drive activity. Is this because in Copy/Paste Windows makes an actual physical duplicate in the target location whereas in Cut/Paste it only changes the directory mapping? If so, why can't it also change the directory mapping in Copy/Paste?

within the same drive, cut/paste will simply change the directory mapping, and copy/paste will clone the file and create a new directory mapping.

across multiple drives, cut/paste will copy then delete, whereas copy/paste will just copy.

therefore, cut/paste is (a lot) faster on the same drive, and copy/paste is (marginally) faster across drives.

Your assumption is correct. It can't just change the mapping for copying because it needs to read every single byte and then make a copy of it (+ a different dir map)


or what shawnz said...

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Originally posted by ShawnZ
copy/paste is (marginally) faster across drives.

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quote:

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Originally posted by alegator
Across drives I always noticed that cut/paste is way faster than copy/paste, not as much a difference as within the same drive, but definitely faster...

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