How can I dedicate more RAM to file transfer?

Helmut said:

The reason is basically that there is a very large number of small files in the mix. This always leads to very much slower speed on the small files.
It is always like that doing a simple file copy with Windows File Explorer. I presume it is partly the Drives and partly the file system that does that. RAM does not come into this.

You can change that by ZIPing in to one large file, copying, and unZIPing again.

Easier if you use something like macrium to clone /image disk and restore.

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks for all the help and expert advice. I'll turn off AV and try using FreeFileSync which I have.

It's true that there are a lot of small files being transferred but many are XMP files that are needed to transfer metadata for thousands of images in my large Lightroom photo library. I don't recognize many of the other small files but I'd rather err on the side of safety rather than speed.

Again - thanks for the expert advice - it gives me a few new things to check out. And I'm now convinced that there's not an easy way to make some hidden adjustment to bump up the RAM usage.