Do you understand file transfers?
There’s this magical air to them.
I remember on Windows I would watch the progress bar fill up at its own pace.
When I switched to Linux, the situation changed.
File transfer times felt more reliable.
Not only that, they seemed faster, too.
So, does Linux have speedier file transfer speeds?
And if it does, why?
Let’s Start With File Systems
Hard drives are divided into sectors of data.
Sectors are grouped into clusters, which represent a continuous block of storage space on a disk.
To manage these clusters,operating systems use file systems.
You may have also heard ofAPFS, theApple Filesystemthat’sthe new standard on Macs.
Linux and Windows each use different file systems.
The Windows file system isNTFS, short forNew Technology File System.
No, the name isn’t exactly apt anymore.
While a decade and a half newer than FAT, NTFS is now around twenty-five years old.
Nonetheless, it doescome with advantages over FAT.
That said, your typical Linux-based operating system likely defaults toEXT4, orFourth Extended File System.
The first stable release of this file system came in 2008.
The original version,EXT, came in 1992 as the first designed specifically for use with Linux.
These file systems don’t just merely have different names.
They handle data differently.
And that’s only scratching the surface of all the conditions that can impact the speed of your transfer.
This is why I’m not running any comparison tests: they’re entirely subjective.
But if youdowant to see a simple comparison video that someone else made, here you go.
For starters, what other applications are running in the background?
On Windows, even if you’ve closed every window, there’s still a lot going on.
The same is true on Linux, but the processes tend to be less memory intensive.
What drivers are you using?
A faulty driver can also have an impact on the speed of your transition.
Windows and Linux handle drivers differently.
On Linux, they’re typically baked directly into the kernel.
your gear either supports a piece of hardware or doesn’t.
On Windows, you could often download drivers after the fact.
As is common with software designed to be extendable, this approach can lead to bloat and inefficiencies.
An aging drive won’t transfer data as quickly as a new one.
The same concern is true if you’re transferring to an old USB stick or hard drive.
So Why Do Linux Transfers Feel Faster?
One reason is that EXT4 is particularly good at handling small files.
Phoronix has demonstrated this with benchmarks showing the speeds of various Linux file systemscopying data to a USB stick.
EXT4 is also good at managing larger contiguous blocks of data.
EXT4 benefits from delaying allocation of data blocks until data is ready to be written to disk.
NTFS suffers from fragmentation.
EXT4 writes data in a way where this isn’t a problem.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, even if it may come at the cost of speed.
What’s Your Experience?
In the end, if Linux is faster, that doesn’t mean it’s faster in all cases.
I wouldn’t switch from Windows to Linux just for faster transfer speeds.
There areplenty of other reasons to consider.
Here are the best wireless transfer apps for Linux.
