copying files (speed)

[Rashkae]

Rick wrote:
> Well, just got a shock ... copying folder with over 3.GB of small
> files...to a external usb NTFS drive... a blazing 1.4 MB/s ???
> 
> Okay, coming from Windows got around 28 MB/s,
> Anyone on this... on why copy function is way SLOW?
> 
> Do, I need to adjust some setting?
> or format the external hard drive using a different format,
> other than NTFS

How many MB/s if your tar the files to /dev/null

cd /some/directory/with/3.8G/small/files
tar -cf /dev/null .

That  should at least tell you whether the speed issue is with the
source or destination.