For context:

I’m copying the same files to the same USB drive for comparison from Windows and from my Fedora 41 Workstation.

Around 10k photos.

Windows PC: Dual Core AMD Athlon from 2009, 4GB RAM, old HDD, takes around 40min to copy the files to USB

Linux PC: 5800X3D, 64GB RAM, NVMe SSD, takes around 3h to copy the same files to the same USB stick

I’ve tried chagning from NTFS to exFAT but the same result. What can I do to improve this? It’s really annoying.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    except linux waits on updating the UI until all write buffers are flushed, whereas Windows does not.

    I wish that were true here. But when I copy to USB the file manager ( XFCE/Thunar ) shows the copy is finished and closes the copy notifications way way before it’s even half done, when I copy movies to a stick.
    I use fast USB 3 stick on USB 3 port, and I don’t get anywhere near the write speed the stick manufacturer claims. So I always open a terminal and run sync, to see when it’s actually finished.

    I hate to the extreme when systems don’t account for write cache before claiming a copy is finished, it’s such an ancient problem we’ve had since the 90’s, and I find it embarrassing that such problems still exist on modern systems.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        Yes that’s annoying too, I have no clue why it does that, but when the sync says “clear”, I always wait a couple seconds, and run sync again a couple of times, to see if it’s actually finished. And only THEN unmount the stick.
        Copy to USB does not seem very solid on Linux IMO. So I also ALWAYS buy sticks with activity LED.
        But even that can fool you, sometimes when I think a smaller copy is finished, because the LED stops blinking, it suddenly starts up again, after having paused for about 1½ second?!?!