Heck... never realised this would take 5 days
10MB/sec transfer, so makes sense.

Hoping that running for 5 days solid doesnt cause the drive I want to backup to break in the process!

 

I used to copy parallel. For example, if I have 30k massive presets, just copying them one by one takes very long. So better to copy folder by folder all together and copy them in parallel.

I am sure you will have many small files so, if that does not go in parallel, It will take a long time.

 

You need a mass copy handler like Teracopy. That way if there are errors, it will automatically know which files to skip & you won't have to babysit it. It works so much better than default OS copy operations. I also recommend a file analyzer such as Spacemonger for a visual breakdown of what's taking up the most room.

These tools are PC only, so if you are on Mac, maybe someone can chime in with similar, relevant tools.

Sounds like you are transferring at USB 2 speed. In the future, invest in USB 3 so this process takes hours instead of days.

 

If you have an antivirus installed, scan your files first, then disable the antivirus while copying, this will speed up the process.

 

SSD - the only way to speed up copying , but 10 tb takes also really long.

you can split your data package and copy step by step - switch of all tasks your dont need (bit defender stuff or some tools)

remember:

the OS - is PERMANENTLY writing and reading data from your system c: driver.
A good beginning is to invest in fast SSD and RAM

 

I use Goodsync for many years now. It backs up with error correction e.g. when you have to break the process.
You only need to define what and how (just copy from a to b or synchronize a+b) you want to backup. You can start the process when windows starts and even as a service so you don't need to be logged in, just start the PC.
This way you don't need to copy ALL files everytime you want to backup.
It costs around $30 but there is a try before buy version available.

p.s.: 10 MB/s is really slow. Can't you connect your drive with USB2 or 3?

 

Thanks for the comments all. I'm 2 days in now, so somewhat committed to that process, but will have other drives to backup too...

What's copying in parallel? I've had a quick look, but can't work it out.

I'm not sure the laptop I've used has USB3 ports
I have a better laptop with SSD, but only realised this would have been the one to use afterwards - and I'm copying from external to external, so the internal SSD may not help?

I'll disable AV now in case that helps...

 

I have a backup PC for these types of backups, so it doesn't tie up my main PC.

 

antivirus, indexing, telemetry and other sh!t are slowing down the copy process,
if you're going sata to sata (or even sata to sata via Gbit network), it should go AT LEAST 50MBytes/s

 

I copied 11.2 TB (2 6TB HDD RAID 0) to a new 18.1 TB RAID 0 (2 10TB HDD) under SATA 3 (6Gbps) and it was 80 hours. You don´t need 5 days (120 hours) for only 4 TB. And no need additional software(disable antivirus? Are you kidding?) Don´t turn off computer in 24h, restart and continue copying from SATA to SATA. If destiny is USB, forget what I said except if you have USB 3.1. Not 3.0.

No secrets for this.

 

for macOS only
I always make on a 4TB hard drive 4 sparse bundle images of 1TB each (initially they are small then grow in size up to 1TB as new files are added). Anyways, after creation, I changed the band size from 8MB to something larger (the bands are essentially split files that make the disk image, default size is 8MB so thousands will be needed for 1TB drive but luckily band size can be increased):

hdiutil convert new.sparsebundle -format UDSB -tgtimagekey sparse-band-size=262144 -o new_band.sparsebundle

Finally, I backup these disk images instead of their content. This way, is very easy for the backup program to compare few hundreds of 256 MB files and replace only the new/changed bands. Otherwise, backing up small files via network can be a nightmare. Not only the first backup but each subsequent backup in the compare phase can take hours.

It's also cool to use these sparse bundle images because I essentially have the data always at the same location \Volumes\Sparse_n\ regardless if the image is on my portable USB drive, or on the desktop mirror drive or on the network for that matter. So I don't need to worry about preserving paths anymore.

Hope it helps someone. Cheers!