More findings on the "slow file copies under Vista" issue

[Qu0ll]

I have previously reported very slow file copies from a Vista machine to a
non-Vista machine and (obviously) so have numerous others. In my last post
on this matter I revealed that the problem only seems to arise when the copy
is initiated from the Vista machine itself and not when it is initiated from
the other machine. Now I think I have discovered some further information
on this matter.

I tried copying a 100MB file from the Vista machine to the Server 2003
domain controller and the copy completed very quickly (just a matter of a
few seconds). When I noticed this I thought that perhaps the slow copy
problem had been fixed on my machine for some reason but when I tried the
original test case again (a folder of about 2000 files totaling only 30MB)
the problem resurfaced i.e.. it took nearly 2 hours to copy.

Clearly it is not so much the total size of the copy that determines if the
copy is going to be slow but rather the number and nature of the files
involved.

I hope this sheds some more light on the problem and goes a little way to
resolving it once and for all.

--
And loving it,

-Q
_________________________________________________
(e-mail address removed)
(Replace the "SixFour" with numbers to email me)

 

[Peter Lawton]

From what I understand the issue is caused by MS insisting on doing a DRM
check on every file you copy, I wouldn't like to speculate on why MS felt
that users would be crying out for this feature, but I'm sure the users find
the slight inconvenience it causes worth it ;-)

Copying a single 100Mb file Vista only has to do a single DRM check, copying
100,000 separate 1Kb files Vista has to do 100,000 separate DRM checks, one
for each file.

Yet another reason to stick with XP

Peter Lawton

 

[Kurt Herman]

Its not the DRM. Its "ownership".

If ,in the security settings, you don't own the file, it checks each one for
safety. If you take ownership (as the user that you logged in as), of the
entire drive/drives, the copy will be just as fast as in XP.

Kurt

 

[Peter Lawton]

You may well be right but why is XP so much faster copying files than Vista?
I'm assuming that NTFS file ownership isn't very different between XP and
Vista, or is it?

Peter Lawton

 

[Adam Albright]

Its not the DRM. Its "ownership".

If ,in the security settings, you don't own the file, it checks each one for
safety. If you take ownership (as the user that you logged in as), of the
entire drive/drives, the copy will be just as fast as in XP.

Safety? Just who is Microsoft trying to protect?

Part of Vista's built-in stupidness is it can REFUSE for no valid
reason to allow you to fully change permissions resulting in a mixed
bag of permissions which can cause all kind of weird problems.

For example I have tried countless times to "take over" an entire hard
drive with tens of thousands of files only to have the next to useless
and completely moronic UAC come back with this annoying nag message:

"An error occurred while applying security information to XXXXXX
access is denied."

So if I log on as user X and have drive Y "owned" by this user and
give that user total and full access by editing the security tab, if
some files or folders on this volume can't be changed (see above) then
attempts to read or write to these folders STILL causes Vista to drag
it's feet during routine copy/move/delete operations because obviously
it is being overly worried over nothing.

The problem is there is no master override. Time and time again the
moronic UAC stands in your way preventing YOU the user from setting up
YOUR computer as you wish it to be set up. This is Microsoft's fatal
design flaw. It is like the warden of some prison being unable to lock
the cell doors and some bone headed security system constantly telling
him he don't have permission to run his own prison.

While setting or changing permissions may be beyond what the casual
users wants to mess with, it can be as frustrating as hell to
experienced users to in effect be locked out of their own system or be
powerless to make changes because options for some folder/files remain
grayed out no matter what the hell you do. If this is Microsoft's idea
of good security, then whoever authorized the crap called UAC should
be taken out in the parking lot and placed in stocks for all passerbys
to throw rotten fruit and vegetables at.

Be it some hidden agenda to test for DRM or just bonehead Vista being
dumb about permissions the problem does cause a lot of needless grief
for a lot of users. I suspect when SP1 finally arrives UAC will get a
major overall. As it is now, it is next to useless and more a pain in
the ass than anything else. Both experienced users and Microsoft knows
as it is right now UAC is a major bow wow and it is causing much
frustration and anger directed at Microsoft for them dumping this not
ready and very poorly implemented piece of crap on a unsuspecting
public.

 

[Qu0ll]

Its not the DRM. Its "ownership".

If ,in the security settings, you don't own the file, it checks each one
for safety. If you take ownership (as the user that you logged in as), of
the entire drive/drives, the copy will be just as fast as in XP.

With the 30MB/1000 file example I mentioned I certainly owned all the files
so there must be some other reason. And how does one take ownership of an
entire drive?

--
And loving it,

-Q
_________________________________________________
(e-mail address removed)
(Replace the "SixFour" with numbers to email me)

 

[Adam Albright]

With the 30MB/1000 file example I mentioned I certainly owned all the files
so there must be some other reason. And how does one take ownership of an
entire drive?

You can... sort of anyway.

Right click on a drive (not C, Windows will freak, thinking it owns
your root drive and don't like it messed with) then properties, then
Security Tab. Under Group or Users name you typically will see several
default items like Creator Owner, System, etc. plus Users where you
should find all the users listed including yourself.

If you use the computer by yourself and haven't set up any other users
there should only be the one name (user) you gave yourself when you
installed Windows. Highlight THAT user then click on the EDIT button
then be sure all the entries are checked under the permissions list if
you want to give yourself unlimited permission which would be similar
to making yourself "administrator" under XP.

In theory this should give you (the user) ownership of the entire
drive's contents if Vista doesn't fall asleep or mess up.

Try repeating this experiment IF you are experiencing slow file
transfers (copy/moving/deleting)

How I tested: 2 physical hard drives each 300 GB in size about half
full.

Begin by NOT "owning" either drive. If you already do 'own them' under
the security tab, for test purposes uncheck 'full control' and
'modify' under the permissions list for BOTH hard drives.

1. Set up two empty folders, one on each drive.

2. Try a large sample, I took 100 files about 8 GB total.

3. Copy to the folder on the other drive. When the window
comes up, click on the little arrow to observe details and
you'll get both a time estimate and a transfer speed that the
copy process is working at.

Without you "owning" the drives Windows will probably show the
"calculating time..." message for an extended time, the more files you
copy and their combined size, the longer it will show. Once the actual
copying starts the speed will likely be little over a crawl between
..25 to 1.5 MB a second, maybe a little more if you're lucky. On my
system it took just under 7 minutes to complete the copy.

Now go to the Security tab on BOTH drives making sure you (as owner)
have all the permissions checked including 'full control' and 'modify'
then after deleting the files from the folder you just copied them to
in the first test, try copying them again.

For me, things were much faster. The "calculating time..." message
lasted for just a couple seconds and the speed jumped up to a
respectable 48 MB a second on average completing in a little over two
and a half minutes or roughly the same kind of performance as under
XP.

You speeds will vary depending on the number of files, the overall
speed of your drives and your overall system rating, CPU speed, BUS
speed, etc., but you should see a marked difference once Vista thinks
you "own" the drives you're transferring files between.

Note: When you make a "security" change Windows will scan the files
and show their names flying by since I'm guessing it's changing some
hidden attribute flag.

 

[Qu0ll]

Try repeating this experiment IF you are experiencing slow file
transfers (copy/moving/deleting)

I tried this but it made no difference on my system. I changed the
permissions and took ownership of the entire drive but it hasn't changed
anything performance wise.

--
And loving it,

-Q
_________________________________________________
(e-mail address removed)
(Replace the "SixFour" with numbers to email me)

 

[Romane]

, I am wondering if it is either of the below. When copying from my Vista
box across the network, sometimes it works fast, sometimes it works
slooooow. We are talking the difference transferring megabytes per second,
to other times being a couple of kilobytes a second. And it is not the type
of files - I have a directory I copy across to my XP beast at least once a
day, all HTML files (about 2000 or so, number and structure rarely changes),
and sometimes it goes fast, and at other times sloooooow. My own suspicion
is that it is a combination of the two machines, not something that can be
laid directly at the door of Vista.

R.

 

[Adam Albright]

I tried this but it made no difference on my system. I changed the
permissions and took ownership of the entire drive but it hasn't changed
anything performance wise.

What kind of transfer speed are you getting? If it is around 35 MB or
more a second, that's about as good as it gets depending on system.