Copy 100 millon of files

[jtb1982]

I understand this might not be the right subforum for this question, and I apologize if I'm posting inappropriately.

This week, I completed a RAID recovery and extracted approximately 100 million files. It took me weeks to extract this information. My client has reviewed the data and wants to keep it. Now, I need advice on copying this vast amount of data. The total size is 2TB, but the challenge is the sheer number of files. I want to avoid a process that will take weeks.

I was considering using Norton Ghost, but I'm unsure if it can handle this volume of files and the partition size. The data is currently on a 22TB HDD. I also discovered that Norton Ghost hasn't had a new release since 2010. Does anyone have any suggestions for efficiently copying this large amount of data?

Thanks very much and my best regards

[fzabkar]

Would it be faster if you were to compress the recovered files into one large archive, and then transfer that archive to the destination drive? If so, you could offer the client a discount for a smaller target drive.

[Arch Stanton]

Sell him that drive

[MISU]

Why to copy when you can clone ?
I use my hardware imager for copying large data. A 2 TB disk cloning might take 2~3 hours max without bothering contents on the disk.
You can try software cloning tools like hddsuperclone

[pepe]

@Misu: data was copied to a 22TB drive...

I see some potentially bad thing here. If that 22TB drive is SMR, no wonder it was slow to copy data out. However, if you compress it to a CMR drive, it might be faster now, coz no writing operation on the SMR is necessary.
I can't understand Franc's discount idea, could you pls make it clear? The OP already suffered a lot more than expected from a regular job, i guess he wasn't told the number of files... It is definitely a pain in the...

[MISU]

@Misu: data was copied to a 22TB drive...

I see some potentially bad thing here. If that 22TB drive is SMR, no wonder it was slow to copy data out. However, if you compress it to a CMR drive, it might be faster now, coz no writing operation on the SMR is necessary.
I can't understand Franc's discount idea, could you pls make it clear? The OP already suffered a lot more than expected from a regular job, i guess he wasn't told the number of files... It is definitely a pain in the...

Thanks pepe for correcting ,I thought its 2 TB disk.
Yes all drives coming are mostly SMR , I could not find any CMR disk anymore for my internal disk somehow I do not trust seagate / WD so only option left was Toshiba but they don't have any CMR

[pepe]

there are cmr drives out there, like wd red plus, wd red pro, wd gold, and some seagate families too. Check datasheets, they usually note recording technology...

[lcoughey]

What about a smart partition copy with R-Studio?

[SOSdonnees]

If your 22TB drive is not too much filled with other data, what about (defragmenting and) shrinking the partition to a smaller one (typically 2TB to 4TB), then cloning to a smaller drive with ddrescue or equivalent.
I assumed a NTFS partition where Windows would handle the shrinking quite well.

We would need to know more for the right guidance.