tar vs cp

[Jamie]

    I've been told in the past that if you have a series of directories
with subdirectories that you need to copy to another location on a disk,
it is better to tar the directory, move the tarred file to the
destination, and then untar it, rather than using cp to copy the directory
and all of its contents.

    I don't know what the actual rationale is for this. Can anyone explain
why it is oftentimes better to tar something rather than using cp when
copying directories and their contents?




    Thanks,

   - Jamie



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