system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is copying 1000 1MB files so much slower than copying 1 1GB file, given that the same amount of data is being copied?
gpt
Any process has overhead - process time needed to set up and tear down that process.  Overhead is generally fixed, or close to it.

As an example, let's say that copying a file take 3 operations to set up and 2 to tear down, plus 1 operation per MB transferred.  For a 1000MB file, you'd have:

    3+1000+2 = 1005 operations.

For 1000 1MB files:

   (3+1+2)*1000 = 6000 operations

That's not precisely how it would go down but you see the point.