mick.crane wrote: > > When moving files on the same disk impression is, at least with dragging in > the desktop file manager, it seems instant. Whereas to another disk seems to > make new files. I guess that when on the same disk the OS changes only > something about the file description?
That's often, but not always, correct. If the target location is in the same filesystem as the source of the files, the only thing that needs to be changed is the metadata about where each file is. If the target location is on a different filesystem, a "move" is a full copy followed by a delete of the source. Multiple filesystems can be on the same physical storage (root, home, var...), and single filesystems can span multiple physical storage units (RAID of various kinds). -dsr-
