Benchmark Results: File Copy Time
The file copy tests are initiated and timed via the operating system command line interface (CLI). In order to get a realistic measurement, a reboot is necessary between each iteration. The test files include the ISO image of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and a folder containing 275 high-def wallpapers.
Hard Drive To Hard Drive
When copying files from one directory to another on the same hard disk drive, Fedora 16 beats Ubuntu by a half second and Windows by nearly four seconds.
Hard Drive To USB
An 8 GB Kingston DataTraveler 100 G2 USB thumb drive is used in a USB 2.0 port on the front panel of our test system for the USB tests. The thumb drive is formatted with the FAT32 filesystem. Due to consistent results between iterations and the long duration of this test, we only need to run two the test twice to confirm our scores.
Although Fedora and Ubuntu tie in the longer hard drive-to-USB file copy test, Windows beats both Linux distros by nearly a minute an a half.
USB To Hard Drive
The USB-to-hard drive test is essentially a three-way tie. Ubuntu 11.10 finishes a little over one second before Fedora 16 and a split-second before Windows 7.
Adding up all of the times in these tests can be a little misleading. If you were to do that, Windows 7 would have a massive advantage due to the win in hard drive-to-USB file copy times. However, since the hard drive-to-hard drive times are by far the most significant to everyday performance, this one goes to Fedora 16.