When copying/transferring files on your computer from drive A to drive B, which drive is doing the “reading” and which drive is doing the “writing”? What determines the rate of transfer if hard drive A is say, an SSD and hard drive B is a HDD?

Question

When copying/transferring files on your computer from drive A to drive B, which drive is doing the “reading” and which drive is doing the “writing”? What determines the rate of transfer if hard drive A is say, an SSD and hard drive B is a HDD?

In: Technology

Answer 1

The drive you’re copying from is reading while the other one is writing.

The speed is determined by the weakest link, ie the slower of the two drives (specifically the source drive’s reading speed vs. the target drive’s writing speed).