robocopy

There is a limit on command line length (I think it is something like 2048 characters) in windows. You should generate a job file with a small subset of the exclusion list specified (using the /save:filename argument) to get the syntax, edit the file to include the full list, and then use the /job:filename argument … Read more

You must include the full path (including the drive) to the file to exclude. Relative paths won’t work. This works: robocopy folder1 destination /E /XF “c:\somedir\another dir\folder1\help.txt” This doesn’t: robocopy folder1 destination /E /XF “folder1\help.txt” Nor does this: robocopy folder1 destination /E /XF “.\folder1\help.txt”

Turns out the /XD matches on the directory name — not the full path. So you don’t actually have to worry about matching the backslashes. So to exclude directories (anywhere in the path) called “bar”, a simple /XD bar will work. If you wanted to exclude “barf”, too, you could use /XD bar*. Sometimes the … Read more

In my case, it turned out to be the /Z switch, for restartable mode. Removing that switch brought the copy up to 105-110MB/s, just like the explorer copies. I still don’t know why it causes such a massive performance hit.