Most of us know that it is possible to perform folder and file copy or move operations in Windows by either using your mouse to copy and paste, drag and drop or by using a number of keyboard shortcuts. Obviously the single biggest factor affecting the speed of any transfer is what medium you’re copying from or to such as hard drives, SSD’s, USB sticks, network etc. Another factor is how Windows itself deals with these operations, and all versions of Windows have never been quite as efficient at it as they could be.
With this in mind, it is entirely possible to shorten the duration of any copying or moving of files if you use a piece of third party software to take over operations instead of relying on the Windows built-in function. Not only can this help the speed of transfers, but you can also get other benefits like better information, queuing copies, pausing, skipping, and dealing with problematic files far better than what Windows does.
We were curious to find out just how fast some of these programs actually are when copying and moving files around in Windows, so have gathered together 15 freeware tools to have a closer look. A few simple tests were carried out to try and determine which file copying tools are the fastest at performing file transfers in a few different real world scenarios. To try and cover some common file copy operations, 3 tests were conducted;
Test 1: Copy a number of small to medium files from one HDD to another.
4GB totaling 24,185 files / 6193 folders with sizes of a few bytes to 320MB.
Test 2: Copy 2 large files using the same source and destination as test 1.
2x Windows 8 ISO’s (x86 and x64) totaling 5.8GB.
Test 3: Copy over a 10/100 LAN network to the same destination as tests 1 and 2.
450MB totaling 5665 files / 723 folders with sizes of a few bytes to 320MB.
The source drive was a 10,000 RPM WD Raptor and the destination was a standard 7200 RPM SATA drive, both defragged. All the 3rd party software was run using their default transfer settings on a clean and fully updated install of Windows 7 64-bit. Each test was run twice and an average of the times was taken.
If you want to jump straight to the results table and a summary of the findings about who performed best and worst, they can be found on page 2.
1. Copy Handler 1.32
Copy Handler is a tool that while it sits in your system tray, can take over the file copying operations from Windows or monitor the clipboard for files. During a copy a small and simple window will appear with basic details, double clicking will give you the full window with a wealth of stats and past / present operations. There’s a number of pause and resume buttons, context menu entries can be added and an options window to configure most areas of the program.
Multiple file copy test 1: 154 seconds
ISO copy test 2: 141 seconds
Network copy test 3: 98 seconds
2. ExtremeCopy Standard 2.1.0
There are 2 different version of ExtremeCopy, the standard free one and the full shareware version. Functions such as copy or collision options, window position, failed file recovery and the buffer size are disabled in the free version, but you can still integrate it into Explorer to take over the standard Windows file copy functions. Pause, skip and verify are also present. A small options window pops out from the copy dialog using the arrow in the top left. For the USB stick a slightly older portable version is also available.
Multiple file copy test 1: 111 seconds
ISO copy test 2: 86 seconds
Network copy test 3: 262 seconds
3. FastCopy 2.11
FastCopy is a tool that’s been recommended by a lot of people over the years because it’s a simple and yet incredibly fast file copier. There are a number of buffer options to tweak the performance even further, basic or advanced file filters, an NSA method wipe and delete option, verify and copy / sync / differential / overwrite copy modes. It also has several options for adding context menu entries and extensive command line options, although something missing is a pause or skip function. Watch out for the weird uninstaller where you have to rerun the setup exe.
Multiple file copy test 1: 110 seconds
ISO copy test 2: 86 seconds
Network copy test 3: 79 seconds
4. FF Copy 1.0
FF Copy is relatively simple copying tool where you select or drag and drop multiple selections of files and folders onto the window and they will be copied or moved to the destination you select from the button or drop down. There are no other options to speak of and this tool probably functions best when you want to quickly send files from multiple locations to several different folders and then let it process them.
Multiple file copy test 1: 163 seconds
ISO copy test 2: 86 seconds
Network copy test 3: Refused to copy the folder, gave an error every time.
5. KillCopy 2.85
KillCopy is a copy tool that doesn’t look too great out of the box and the theme below called “Standart” was about the best built into the program. There are some downloadable themes from the website but they aren’t that great either. The program itself has several useful features such auto resuming after a system crash, parallel copy mode and several boosting and buffer settings to try and eek out that extra few MB/s. KillCopy can place copy and move entries onto the context menu and can also be setup to be the default copy handler replacing Explorer.
Multiple file copy test 1: 131 seconds
ISO copy test 2: 88 seconds
Network copy test 3: 78 seconds
6. Mini Copier 0.5
This copying tool is a little different than the others here because it was written in Java meaning there are different versions for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX, although this does make for a hefty 20MB installer. The program is similar in looks to SuperCopier but adding files and folders is done entirely by dropping them onto the red basket in the program’s window. When you’re ready to copy, drop the destination folder onto the right icon and the process will begin. Standard pause and skip buttons are available.
Multiple file copy test 1: 166 seconds
ISO copy test 2: 89 seconds
Network copy test 3: 130 seconds
7. NiceCopier 12.10.31
NiceCopier does actually live up to its name and is quite a nice looking tool and will show you either a small progress window in a corner of the desktop or expand to a full dialog window where you can alter the transfer speed and edit the files list including any ignore / replace / rename options that need to be configured. NiceCopier will take over Windows file operations while it’s running in the system tray and while there’s a lot of information in the dialog windows, it’s all relevant and well laid out. A large window will alert you to any file collisions etc.
Multiple file copy test 1: 147 seconds
ISO copy test 2: 87 seconds
Network copy test 3: 129 seconds
8. PerigeeCopy 1.6
PerigeeCopy has several useful functions built in such as replacing Explorer for default file operations, using or ignoring the recycle bin when deleting files, leaving errors until the end of the copy process and 6 different overwrite options. The main copy dialog is quite informative but there are no extra features like pause, queue or skip for that extra bit of control.
Multiple file copy test 1: 186 seconds
ISO copy test 2: 89 seconds
Network copy test 3: 101 seconds
File copy tools 9 – 15 and the results/summary are on page 2.
Fastcopy can transfer large amount of data without problems.
I just recently transfer a large folder which has a number of sub folders.
202 GB (217,741,109,599 bytes)
7,022 Files, 624 Folders
Thanks for this nice review.
Awesome tests, Raymond. Thank you.
I do not like TeraCopy (paid version).
In two tests, he failed to copy ~200 files totaling ~7GB.
In another test, he failed to copy/replace three files in the system folder, totaling 387KB.
I ran the same tests with SuperCopier and have not had any problem.
Dear good test
The supercopier have a new version 3.0 who make better transfert than 2.5 beta
Perhaps we can update your exelent test
TeraCopy dies when you select a large number of files from a folder to copy. Selected 180,000 files to copy and had to kill the process after 5 minutes of waiting for it do do something…
TeraCopy doesn’t die. It takes a long time for it to process a large number of files. If you had waited longer it should’ve worked fine.
Yes it dies, try to move a directory and while doing it, move it to somewhere else with windows standard move action, when teracopy reaches the missing files it will slow down and the speed is 1 file/folder per 30 second
At first it looked like FastCopy was doing a great Job but after 2850 seconds it shows major drawbacks in performance, my bet is the verify option!
Up until now FastCopy archived ~80mb/s (diff hdd setting) then it stopped because md5sum was slower than copied files (assumption: md5sum in FastCopy is not multithreaded) .
Ever since the copy process stopped once it won’t get faster than ~50mb/s – Which kinda sux!
TotalRead 134215.2mb
TotalWrite 134093.5mb
TransRate (current): 42mb/s
Amount of Data to be copied 917GB!
I say Win7 x64 copy is faster than that!
gonna try out teracopy to see if it is good~ thx raymond
I Have been using Fast Copy, intergrated with Total Commander, for many years. Never failed me. A nice feature is the ability to detect and create physical Hard Links as well as logical Junction Points. Anyway, you have to study the help file carefully(!) to use these advanced features. Nerd recommandation :) Greetz Duck.
Excellent review!
Excellent article. Helped me a lot make up my mind. Congratulations and keep on going! I visit daily your site ;)
I think it’s only fair to Win 8 that I mention the cause for a large part of the slowdown, although obviously the result stands because that’s how it comes by default; better security but slower copy speeds.
the part with the Defender being active while testing should be highlighted in the Win8 test results
because in normal work the computer has 1 AV product active, on any systems, unless you are asking to get a virus.
and so far, all the AV products i use just disable the builtin defender product so at the end of the day you don`t get a Xp + filecopy vs Win8 + defender + file copier, instead you get let`s say Xp+Eset vs Win8+Eset
hi folks, happy new year to all. I wanto to ask if robocopy not winrobocopy is better or worse than fastcopy over network copy? since many years I used to schedule robocopy script for network files transfer, I want to ask you why don’t you have introduced classic robocopy tool in this review to see if is more reliable or less than others softwares?Thank you in advance for your answer and for your review. Have a nice day, Matthew.
Thank you very much and happy new year 2013
Wow surprised at Win8′s poor performance (just another reason in my mind to stick with Win7). Also a little disappointed to see my program of choice, Teracopy, not do better then it did. I’ll be trying out a couple of these other programs though although I love Teracopy’s shell integration that some of these others don’t have.
hey raymond.wel come back.
thanks for that
I have tried some of these. I liked copy handler the best. I now use Q-Dir as it does a lot more than just copy and I find it is pretty fast. It is also easy to copy between the four screens.
Great review! Just one tip: you can pause Fastcopy if you put the “buffer slider” all to the left i.imgur.com/KOBBD.png
FastCopy is the best but the poor thing is that there is no way to integrate with the Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V shortcuts in Explorer…
I like to know I’m using a very fast copy software.great article as always, thanks
Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning………..Say Goodbye 2012 today & Welcome 2013 tomorrow!
Happy New Year 2013!
Thanks HAL9000……….for the update!
I have a question Raymond, is it worthwhile to use Teracopy in Windows 8 Pro 64 bit? I haven’t used it since Windows XP when there was significant improvement over default Windows XP File Transfer/Copy.
Windows 8 seems to have an improvement in its File Transfer/Copy so is there any significant speed difference?
Running a quick test under identical conditions to the article, Teracopy on Win 8 x64 completed test #1 in 205 seconds, 32 seconds up on what Win 8 managed by itself. It will improve things slightly but Win 8 is horribly slow compared to Win 7 and even XP. Win 8 was quicker than Teracopy anyway in tests 2 and 3 so you won’t get much of a gain if any there.
Even Fastcopy took 194 seconds so it seems Win 8 simply struggles with certain file transfers whatever software you use.
The Win8 result for a lot of smaller files is disturbing, but even though it’s unlikely, I’m hoping that perhaps Windows Update wasn’t current on it. I know there were two or three major patches for it in addition to the usual security fixes and the like that wouldn’t matter themselves. Unlikely, but worth asking.
At least Win8 has pause/resume!
I usually use Total Commander, so I’m wondering how it fares in general and if it also suffers from being in Win8.
Unfortunately I’m going to confirm your fears Rick and say that like XP and 7, Windows 8 was fully patched and up to date at the time of writing the article with NO 3rd party software installed at all. The only patch since is a minor one for Windows Defender.
Just ran test #1 on Win 8 with Total Commander x64 8.01 and it completed in 233s, only 4s faster than Windows 8 itself. A similar run in Win 7 produced a result 3s seconds quicker than the default copy of 169s.
Thanks. Well, that cinches it then, another Win8 disappointment. I have a lot of them, but that’s for another thread. I’ll keep an eye out though in other places to see if this issue has come up and what the explanation might be. If we’re lucky, it’s something that can be disabled.
Wow didn’t realized it was this bad! I thought to myself wow look at Win 8 first time ever I seen a different file transfer by Microsoft.
So what do you guys suggest I use to replace Win 8 file transfer? FastCopy or Teracopy? Which is more stable hehe…
Wait a sec: what if it’s Windows Defender doing it (i.e. the renamed Microsoft Security Essentials that’s now bundled in Win8)? That would make sense, since it would affect all programs, and Win7 doesn’t have AV. Could you rerun your test with Defender’s real-time protection disabled?
Yeap, obviously disabling the Security Essentials part of Windows Defender will make a difference and in the test it was around 50 seconds faster which is quite a bit. The thing is now i’m turning off parts of Windows 8 to improve performance where the other 2 weren’t touched to “help things along”. This is why it was tested with default settings or else I would be here all day just tweaking Windows!
@Thomas T
I use Teracopy and FastCopy. They both seem stable to me.
FastCopy lives up to it’s name and is faster, but can not (to the best of my knowledge) be set as Windows Default File Handler while TeraCopy can.
If I want the extra speed I can choose to use FastCopy, but mostly I’m lazy (ctrl+c, ctrl+v) and use TeraCopy.
Although, there is one thing I do always use FastCopy for, and that is syncing a USB Memory Stick to it’s backup folder on my computer. FastCopy has “Sync” as a copy method option and it is a very fast (from my very limited testing) way of updating the backup.
Another nice thing about FastCopy is that you can use it via batch files :-)
and while I’m in a curious mood, a not so quick comparison of speed – Teracopy and FastCopy vs a large folder with *MANY* files (my PortableApps folder :-)
XP3, copying a 1.91GB folder with 35,903 files – from one external Hard Drive to another. Way to many programs running in the background. Computer is old enough that it might even be via USB1.1 connections :-o
Teracopy 2.27: 26.05 minutes
FastCopy 2.11: 17.33 minutes
Windows XP: I’m not even going to try that :-p
I can tell you right now, FastCopy’s Shell Extension is buggy on Win 8. At first it works after few hours seems to stop working . Uninstall and reinstall Shell Extension didn’t seem to help. I will try restart system later but right now to me it is buggy.
Just an update after several reinstall & uninstall shell extension of FastCopy it is working again. Weird but still this to me means its slightly buggy. No pc restart was needed.
So many thanks for this SUPERB review.
I heard time ago about Fast Copy and I change from TeraCopy to it. I like to know I’m using a very fast copy software.
Best regards…
Nice post Raymond!
thanks
Never knew Fast Copier had this much potential, Thanks for the article.
Good article, Ray
Oho, this realy what I like, thanx man…
great article as always, thanks and keep it up
Nice Article. I am also using TERA COPY. A nice copy software.
Thanks for the adtional info…!!!
Thank you for the review Raymond. Now everything is clear :P :D.
Good article. Currently, I’m using TeraCopy’s latest beta version with ease. It’s a breath of fresh air to see some of the new copy file software alternatives.
Thanks Ray for the information, it is extremely helpful
I enjoyed the reading, thanks Raymond.
Thank You Raymond this post is very useful for me as i copy a lot of files.
Thank you Ray!
Thanks Raymond, this information really is, an “eye opener”.
Thank you for the write up Raymond as it makes for interesting reading, i discovered Teracopy awhile back and was initially happy with better transfer speeds.
after reading this review im going to give Fastcopy a trial and see how well it does on my system.
Thank you Ray
Very useful post. Thanks! :)