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Nate
Asked: 2011-02-10 14:51:04 +0800 CST

Using ROBOCOPY to MOVE data around, not copy it

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I have the following powershell script, which executes a few robocopy commands:

ROBOCOPY.exe $q3 $q4 /R:5 /W:15 /S /NP /MT:32 /XA:SH /XJD
ROBOCOPY.exe $q2 $q3 /R:5 /W:15 /S /NP /MT:32 /XA:SH /XJD
ROBOCOPY.exe $q1 $q2 /R:5 /W:15 /S /NP /MT:32 /XA:SH /XJD
ROBOCOPY.exe $src $q1 /R:5 /W:15 /S /NP /MT:32 /XA:SH /XJD

This works fine, but it takes a really long time, I'm wondering, if there is a way that I can have robocopy do a "cut + paste" instead of a "copy + paste" so windows will move the NTFS pointer to the file, instead of actually copying all of the bits of each file?

powershell command-line-interface robocopy

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The /MOV option is designed to do exactly that. Check your specific version of robocopy for it (robocopy /? should show the option).

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  2. Robocopy only leaves empty source folders when using /MT (in my case 32) switch, if I don't use /MT everything is moved, running on 2008R2.

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  3. There is no need to learn these commands when there are utilities to move data around with same attributes like date & time

    Here are few of the tools

    http://www.lantechsoft.com/data-copy.html

    http://www.technocomsolutions.com/data-copy-tool.html

    Seems to work very well and has Graphic user interface

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