How to copy files from multiple SD cards in parallel?

[arturj]

I'm a photographer and after returning from a job, I need to copy material from multiple SD cards. Is it possible to copy material from multiple cards simultaneously? The target drive has sufficient read speeds (around 1000 MB/s), and the cards copy at about 230 MB/s each.

Currently, the second card only starts copying after the first process has completed.

*Donation Edition

[xCSxXenon]

Target read speeds are meaningless for writing data. You can run multiple FFS sessions at a time, but if they are all going to the same root location you will have to disable 'lock files' that are created by FFS so only one instance uses a base location at a time. If each SD card gets copied to its own subfolder, this shouldn't be necessary.

[arturj]

Okay. Thanks for the tip. It may not be the most convenient solution, but it works to some extent.

[Plerry]

The donation (or business) edition of FFS allows parallel file operations in one and the same FFS session/instance.
So, if you would be using the donation or business edition of FFS, you can define multiple left-right pairs; one per SD card. Then there is no need to disable 'lock files'.

[xCSxXenon]

The donation (or business) edition of FFS allows parallel file operations in one and the same FFS session/instance.
So, if you would be using the donation or business edition of FFS, you can define multiple left-right pairs; one per SD card. Then there is no need to disable 'lock files'.

That is not how parallel operations work. That defines operations per pair, and there is only going to be one SD card per pair. Multiple operations on a single card isn't likely to speed it up and may even slow it down.

[John1234]

If it is extremely important to do all of the final copies in parallel you can do that with a built-in windows program called robocopy. Run a separate instance in as many terminal Windows as necessary.

Use robocopy (built into Windows)
You can run multiple commands like:

robocopy E:\Photos D:\AllPhotos /E /MT:8
robocopy F:\Photos D:\AllPhotos /E /MT:8
robocopy G:\Photos D:\AllPhotos /E /MT:8
/MT = multithreaded copy


Run each in a separate window → true parallel copying

[Plerry]

> That is not how parallel operations work.
So, even with the standard FFS version, using multiple left-right pairs in a single FFS session/instance would result in as many parallel operations as you have left-right pairs?

[xCSxXenon]

If it is extremely important to do all of the final copies in parallel you can do that with a built-in windows program called robocopy. Run a separate instance in as many terminal Windows as necessary.

Use robocopy (built into Windows)
You can run multiple commands like:

robocopy E:\Photos D:\AllPhotos /E /MT:8
robocopy F:\Photos D:\AllPhotos /E /MT:8
robocopy G:\Photos D:\AllPhotos /E /MT:8
/MT = multithreaded copy


Run each in a separate window → true parallel copying

Is this an AI answer? It's the same solution I gave, except via CLI, which I'm very sure the user would know how to figure this out if they were apt to using RoboCopy and wouldn't use FFS in the first place.

> That is not how parallel operations work.
So, even with the standard FFS version, using multiple left-right pairs in a single FFS session/instance would result in as many parallel operations as you have left-right pairs?

No, since the standard version locks each base location to 1 operation, meaning the max for any pair is going to be 1 as well.

[Plerry]

No, since the standard version locks each base location to 1 operation, meaning the max for any pair is going to be 1 as well.

If I correctly understand the above part I underlined, each left-right pair performs all its sync actions just in series, but the sync actions series of all of the multiple left-right pairs run in parallel.

But, that seems to be exactly the same as what I wrote:

... using multiple left-right pairs in a single FFS session/instance would result in as many parallel operations as you have left-right pairs?

(at least as long as none of the multiple left-right pairs has finished syncing)
So, then I don't understand your "No, ..."

[xCSxXenon]

Multiple folder pairs aren't run in parallel, I don't know why you're saying that