tar vs. cp

[CALT at SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU]

For some reason, I moved a SINGLE file of about 800 Mb between
two fixed disks. It took about 40 minutes to finish for using
the tar -cvpf ... command; it took more than 5 hours and not
finished yet for using the cp /dir/.../file1 /dir/.../file2
command. (|||) I tried the both three times, getting the similar
resluts. Does anyone have the same/similar situation?

Ching Shih
shih at cithex.bitnet
shih at cithe1.cithep.caltech.edu