How long to calculate size of external drive?

[MulgaBill]

I am in the process of migrating files from a Dell laptop running XP to my new iMac. Essentially an easy task as all the files are on an external drive.

I have 2 TB of storage on the iMac and thought it would be a relatively simple task to copy from the external hard drive to the iMac.

After connecting the drive to the iMac I then tried to get the size of a directory on the external drive. I've been waiting about 15 minutes now and it still says "Calculating Size".

Just after doing this I started a copy to move files from the external drive to the iMac. Unfortunately all I see at present is the spinning beach ball.

Just wondering if there's a way of cancelling the copy process or of getting some status as to what is happening?

 

[Gregg2]

As far as the question in your topic line, it should be self-evident that the time depends on the size. You mention 2TB of data and 15 minutes. What you need to get is free: Patience.

Can you stop a copy? Sure. Turn off the computer. Can you do it in a way that does not have the potential for bad things happening? Not that I know of.

Can the computer tell you what's happening? Maybe, but not after you've started the copying process. You'd have to have something installed ahead of time. Maybe you knew that, but it's not apparent from what you wrote. Does such an app exist? Not sure. Try a search engine.