File system question

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I am in the process of transferring a rather *large* amount of data from a machine (Windows XP) to my external USB drive (NTFS).

I was just curious as to why the Operating system cannot display an estimated time at the time of transfer opposed to changing it's mind throughout the process

Is it to do with fragmentation or the NTFS file system in general? I can't say I have noticed this whilst using Ubuntu (ext2)

Thanks Si

 

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Si would say its got to do with the size of the current file its transfering at that time in proportion to the speed its transfering. In better sence have you noticed a smaller file the time is more accurate? Tranfer a few GB and if you have a 500Mb file moving over the time taken to complete will jump from 15 min to 35 min lets say?

 

Zim,

As you saaaaaaaayyyy (slur, burp!), it must be having trouble estimating the file size possibly.

I have noticed that for relatively small files, XP has no problem displaying the size compared to larger files and folders which seem to be *added up* and takes a while to give you the size.

Si

 

Yes they are unpredictable.

 

I have often wondered about this and this is a purely speculative answer and I've no idea how accurate it is.

I guess it's because Windows runs some kind of recursive algorithm* to calculate the time left to transfer. *I think that's the term, it's been a while since my college days. Basically, you take the answer and put it back in the formula you've used to generate that answer. The initial pass is proportionately inaccurate (so the bigger the data you're transferring, the more innacurate the estimate is in absolute terms). Each pass of the algorithm narrows down the margin of error so it gets more accurate the closer it gets to completing the transfer.

Of course, this could just be total crap.

 

Sounds good to me.

Si