callmealphabet/fastcp

fastcp is a thin wrapper around the standard cp command on Linux that automatically adds a flag called reflink when copying files. The reflink flag tells the filesystem to create an instant reference copy rather than actually duplicating the data on disk. Instead of physically writing all the bytes from the source to the destination, a reflink copy records that the destination points to the same data as the source. If either file is later changed, only the changed parts are written separately. This makes the copy operation nearly instant for any file size. The tool is not a replacement for cp: it calls cp internally and simply appends the reflink=always option before passing along whatever other arguments you supply. If your filesystem or operating system does not support reflinks, the copy will fail rather than fall back to a normal copy, so it is designed for systems where that support is available. According to the documentation, fastcp adds a small overhead of about five milliseconds compared to a regular cp, so it is marginally slower on tiny files. For large files over ten gigabytes, and especially on slow drives, the reflink approach is faster because skipping the physical data duplication saves time. Installation is one line: download the script to a system directory and mark it executable. Uninstalling is equally simple: delete that file. The usage is identical to cp with no differences in flags. The README is short and does not describe the Rust language label in the repository metadata, so the project may be primarily a shell script.