TeraCopy: Better than Windows Explorer but still lacking

I do a lot of file copying.  Most people do.  However, as a filmmaker, photographer, and recording artist, I do a lot of copying of massive amounts of data (my machine is currently running a >800GB transfer that’s been going for more than 20 hours).

The native Windows Explorer copy feature makes me nervous, because sometimes it drops data or runs into trouble with transferring data, and basically, for lack of a better term, just craps out.

A while back I finally found a copy program I like to replace the simple “cut and paste” in Explorer.  Checksum verification was the single most important feature I was looking for.  Basically this means each file is analyzed and assigned a number and then checked against the transferred file once copied.  From the ubiquitous Wikipedia: “A checksum or hash sum is a small-size datum computed from an arbitrary block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage.”

When I shoot photos or video, I need to be absolutely sure the data is not lost or corrupted during transfer.  Checksum verification helps mitigate this problem.  I never transfer anything important without running checksum verification.

For this reason, I love TeraCopy.

I also love that you can pause a transfer, and also that you can initiate several transfers that will run in the order you set them up (rather than try to run them all at the same time… though that options exists as well).

I wish you could pause a transfer or test, shut down your computer, and come back to it.  It doesn’t seem like there is anything that would prevent this from being possible (TeraCopy would just need to store the same “pause” information and then access it once the computer was restarted).  This would be AMAZINGLY helpful for when you’re in the middle of a large file transfer but need to shutdown or restart your computer.

My biggest complaint with the program is that Code Sector brags about how FAST TeraCopy copies files.  They say it over and over again.  It’s even their freaking TAG LINE (see photo).

In all my personal experience and in EVERY review I’ve seen online, TeraCopy is proven slower than just about any transfer program out there… including Window’s native “cut and paste.”

But the thing that has REALLY been annoying me lately is just how insanely slow the file check runs after the actual transfer takes place.  It actually takes CONSIDERABLY longer for TeraCopy to run the Checksum verification after the transfer than it does to actually transfer the files.

I would REALLY like to know what is going on there.

There have also been quite a few times where I’ve initiated a large file transfer and then left it to run overnight, only to come back in the morning to see an error from TeraCopy that states simply “TeraCopy has stopped.”  Uh, ok.  What about all the bragging on the TeraCopy product page about how TeraCopy will try again and again to transfer a file, but ultimately if it fails it will simply skip the file instead of crapping out (like Windows Explorer)?  From the product page: “In case of a copy error, TeraCopy will try several times to recover and, in the worse case scenario, will simply skip the file, not terminating the entire transfer.”  This has not been the case in my experience (on many occasions).

Still, though slower than Windows Explorer copy, I feel more secure transferring my precious data with TeraCopy.  Perhaps it’s a false sense of security, but at least I sleep a little better at night knowing that checksum verification has been run after the file transfer.

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