Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!art100
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1991 15:40:53 EST
From: Andy Tefft <ART100@psuvm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <91087.154053ART100@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: writing many small files to disk... a quick way?

I have recently had need to copy several (a few hundred) small
(1 or 3 block) files to 5.25" disks (from ram disk or 3.5").
I have been using copyII+ for this function but it is unbelievably
slow (about a half hour for 80 of these files).

One of the problems involved here is that these files are to go
in subdirectories. Copy II+ seems to like to screw around with
the directory entries much too much (don't know if this is an
MLI artifact or not). The directories, containing 80+ files,
tend to grow slowly to 6-8 blocks each, and unfortunately
they are fragmented across the disk (because by the time the directory
needs extended, another 3 tracks or so have been allocated to files
and there is no room for a new directory block next to the old ones).

Anyway, the net result is my poor 5.25" drive constantly tracking
(seems the whole subdirectory keeps getting scanned for each file
to be written... whoosh whoosh whoosh (pause) whoshwhooshwhoosh
(pause) whoosh whoosh whooshwhoosh (etc.)) and each 3 block file
taking about 10 seconds to copy (access time from /ram is negligible,
so it's all write activity that is so slow).

So I guess I'm asking if anyone knows of a method that will work
on a non-gs machine for quickly copying scads of small files between
dissimilar devices.

It would be really neat if they could all be written in a big
bunch and the directory updated all at once.