How to Use Robocopy Multithreaded in Windows 10

When you guys need to copy files to another drive, then you typically use the normal select, copy, and paste process as well. Although this process works perfectly fine, speed becomes a bottleneck when trying to transfer a lot of files can take a very long time. In this article, we are going to talk about How to Use Robocopy Multithreaded in Windows 10. Let’s begin!

Well, as an alternative, many tech-savvy users, use Robocopy (Robust File Copy). That is a command-line tool built into Windows 10 that gives more features in order to move data to a different location more quickly.

One specific feature that makes Robocopy so special (and mostly overlooked) is its multi-threaded feature that gives you permission to copy multiple files at the same time. Rather than one file at a time using the copy feature built into File Explorer.

In this guide, you guys will learn to use the multi-threaded copies feature on Robocopy. In order to speed up the transfer process of files and folders to another drive on Windows 10 as well.

Contents

1 How to Use Robocopy Multithreaded in Windows 10

How to Use Robocopy Multithreaded in Windows 10

If you are about to copy a large set of files and folders to another drive, then you have to use these steps to Robocopy multithreaded feature to copy data super-fast.

First, open Start.
Then search for Command Prompt, right-click the result and choose Run as administrator.
Type the following command in order to copy the files and folders to another drive and tap Enter:

robocopy C:\source\folder\path\ D:\destination\folder\path\ /S /E /Z /ZB /R:5 /W:5 /TBD /NP /V /MT:32

Such as:

robocopy C:\Users\admin\Documents D:\Users\admin\Documents /S /E /Z /ZB /R:5 /W:5 /TBD /NP /V /MT:32

Well, in the above command makes sure to change the source and destination paths with your configuration.

Robocopy commands breakdown – Robocopy Multithreaded

Robocopy actually has a lot of features and in the command shown in this guide. We are using the following switches in order to make copy reliable and fast.

/S — Copy subdirectories, but not the empty ones actually.
/E — Copy Subdirectories, which also includes empty ones.
/Z — Copy files in restartable mode actually.
/ZB — Uses restartable mode, if access denied use Backup mode.
/R:5 — Retry 5 times actually (you can also specify a different number, default is 1 million actually).
/W:5 — Wait 5 seconds before retry that (you can also specify a different number, default is 30 seconds).
/TBD — Wait for share names To Be Defined (retry error 67).
/NP — No Progress – do not display percentage copied.
/V — Produce verbose output, showing skipped files as well.
/MT:32 — Do multi-threaded copies along with n threads (default is 8).

Further | Robocopy Multithreaded

Well, the most important switch to focus on the above command is /MT. That is the switch that turns on Robocopy to copy files in multi-threaded mode. If you do not set a number next to the /MT switch, then the default number will be 8. That basically means that Robocopy will try to copy eight files at the same time as well. But, Robocopy supports 1 to 128 threads.

In this command, we are using 32, however, you can set it to a higher number. The only caution is that the greater the number, the more system resources, and bandwidth will be utilized as well. If you have a very old processor while using a high number will affect performance, as such make sure to test before executing the command along with a high number of threads.

When you guys have completed the steps, then you will notice that copying files and folders will now take significantly less time.

You are not limited to copying files and folders to an external or internal drive, this also works in order to migrate files over the network.

Conclusion

Alright, That was all Folks! I hope you guys like this Robocopy Multithreaded article and also find it helpful to you. Give us your feedback on it. Also if you guys have further queries and issues related to this article. Then let us know in the comments section below. We will get back to you shortly.

Have a Great Day!