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I am copying files from remote server to my local server using below scp command. I just type below command on the terminal and it starts copying.

scp -r user@machineA:/data/process/* /data/process/

Now since on remote servers we have around 100 files and each file size is around 11 GB so above command will copy one file at a time. Is there any way by which I can copy 5 files at a time in parallel with some command that I can run directly on the terminal?

I also have GNU parallel installed but not sure how can I use it here which can help me copy files in parallel by running directly on terminal? Or if there is any other way then I am open for that as well.

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    You're quite possibly disk or network bound, in which case running multiple copies in parallel will gain you nothing. Have you done the maths to see if it's worth it?
    – roaima
    Dec 14, 2017 at 23:20
  • Yes it will help me for sure. And there is no harm in trying out since we do this very rare and whenever we do this it takes time so I want to experiment and see whether this parallel copy helps or not. If it doesn't help then we won't use it but if it helps then it's a plus thing for us.
    – david
    Dec 14, 2017 at 23:21
  • Are they text files or binary data?
    – roaima
    Dec 14, 2017 at 23:22
  • They all are binary data, mostly memory mapped files.
    – david
    Dec 14, 2017 at 23:23
  • Would you want to parallelise one file each from five servers, or five files from one server?
    – roaima
    Dec 15, 2017 at 0:03

1 Answer 1

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Here's the command to be run on the remote server, involving find and parallel:

find /data/process/ -type f | parallel scp {} user@machineB:/data/process/

Edit:

See the documentation on how to control the number of jobs to be executed in parallel.

The number of concurrent jobs is given with --jobs or the equivalent -j.
By default --jobs is the same as the number of CPU cores.
--jobs 0 will run as many jobs in parallel as possible.

Edit:

This should be another question, and has already been asked and answered: how to run a command on a remote machine?

ssh user@machineA 'find /data/process/ -type f | parallel scp {} user@machineB:/data/process/'
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  • I need to run this command on local server where I am copying right? And how many files will it copy? I dont see a number to control that? And what is 9001 here?
    – david
    Dec 15, 2017 at 6:43
  • This command is to be run on the remote server containing the files to be copied. It will copy all files found by find, there's no limit on the total number. Ignore the 9001 as it is a leftover from a copy/paste.
    – simlev
    Dec 15, 2017 at 6:46
  • If I have around 100 files then it will start 100 files copying in parallel? It will be great if I can control the number of parallel copy. There is no way to run the command on the local server instead?
    – david
    Dec 15, 2017 at 6:47
  • --jobs controls the number of scp processes running in parallel. It defaults to the number of CPU cores.
    – Ole Tange
    Dec 15, 2017 at 9:35

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