[Courses] [FS] supplemental question on cp and mv

[Telsa Gwynne]

On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 03:52:50PM -0000 or thereabouts, meredydd at lazzurs.net wrote:
> cp file1 file2
>    ...makes a copy of the file "file1" called "file2"
> 
> mv file1 file2
>    ...renames "file1" to "file2"

Is this why, on a slow computer or a very busy computer, you see 
a big time difference between mv'ing very large files around (fast) 
and cp'ing them (not so fast)

You can use the 'time' command to check this: 

time mv oldbigfilename newbigfilename
time cp oldbigfilename newbigfilename

I noticed this with some large-ish files on a busy computer the
other day. The moving was fine; but the copying made my ogg-player
hiccup!

Telsa