Azure remote desktop / Issues acessing network drives

My work currently involves doing ETL (data-munging) using Perl. Because some of the data may have private information (PII), I'm doing my work on a remote desktop, which at this organization is Azure (Windows). It's not really my choice of platform -- but at least I'm able to use the excellent git-bash package to get (more or less) back to a Linux type command line.

The issue I'm having is that transferring files from my volume to the volume where my output is carried on to the next step is unreliable, and I'm wondering if anyone else has come across the same challenge. I also want to check the existing files, as I append a version number to the end of my files so that new files don't overwrite existing files.

Copying files using File Explorer works, but sometimes a transfer will stall at 99%, at which point I may lose my connectivity to the remote desktop. That isn't a bad thing, although it irritatingly loses the network path in the destination folder, and I have to drill down through seven layers of directories to get back to where I was to check that my copy succeeded before disconnecting.
Copying via the command line (you knew that was coming next), while logical, also appears to be hilariously slow. A file that might get copied in 15-20 seconds using Explorer takes 15-20 minutes from the command line. I have no idea why, as it should be going from one network drive to another.

The solution I've finally hit on (this is my work in progress) is to use chdir to go into the directory in question, and then glob to get a list of the files. It still takes ten seconds to get a list of files, but I guess that's the best I can do right now.

Thoughts, comments, ideas are welcome. Thanks!

Alex / talexb / Toronto

Thanks PJ. We owe you so much. Groklaw -- RIP -- 2003 to 2013.

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Re: Azure remote desktop / Issues acessing network drives by Cow1337killr (Monk) on Jun 24, 2016 at 17:09 UTC
Windows, right? Try Teracopy. It won't help with your version number idea. You can control what to do in a file replace situation, though.	[reply]
Re^2: Azure remote desktop / Issues acessing network drives by talexb (Chancellor) on Jun 24, 2016 at 17:44 UTC
Thanks -- the version number thing is something I can deal with programmatically. I would try Teracopy, but I'm not going to install what I assume to be nagware on a company PC if I'm a contractor. However, your suggestion did remind me of Midnight Commander -- I downloaded it, but as it turns out I don't have Administrator privilege to install it, it looks like I'm stuck with my current situation. Alex / talexb / Toronto Thanks PJ. We owe you so much. Groklaw -- RIP -- 2003 to 2013.	[reply]
Re^3: Azure remote desktop / Issues accessing network drives by davies (Monsignor) on Jun 26, 2016 at 13:56 UTC
Have you looked at Portable Apps? They typically need no rights as they are intended to run off thumb drives & the like - install on the thumb drive on a machine you own, then run on any other machine. I install them on my network server & then run them from whichever machine I need right now. Many of them don't like running on more than one machine at a time, but that doesn't sound like your problem. I know Midnight Commander only slightly, but this (http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/freecommander_portable) might be what you want. Regards, John Davies	[reply]
Re^4: Azure remote desktop / Issues accessing network drives by talexb (Chancellor) on Jun 27, 2016 at 15:06 UTC
Re^3: Azure remote desktop / Issues acessing network drives by Cow1337killr (Monk) on Jun 24, 2016 at 18:27 UTC
I have yet to be nagged. ~~Besides, I am sure the company pays a lot more than $19.95 for you fighting to accomplish flawless file transfers.~~ $19.95 is not a lot of money for a big business. It effectively asks you on the window "What do you want me to do if the file already exists in the target directory?" I have mine set to "Always Ask" currently. It is very fast. It displays the results. You can even verify the copies byte by byte after it is done. I was using 7-Zip File Manager to try to backup file directories. It was giving me fits. Then, I found Teracopy after doing a Google search to try to improve my quality of life.	[reply]