> > This is absolutely true. Distcp dominates cp for large copies. On the other hand cp dominates distcp for convenience. > > In my own experience, I love cp when copying relatively small amounts of data (10's of GB) where the available bandwidth of about a GB/s allows the copy to complete in less time that it takes distcp to get started. > > At larger sizes (100's of GB and up), the startup time of distcp doesn't matter because once it gets going, it moves data much faster.
Maybe we could put together a 'fs -smartcp' which choses wisely between copy and distcp depending on file size
