Slow copy to compressed directory on Cruzer

Greetings.  I am new to this forum, just I am new to the Sandisk Cruzer.

I have an 8GB Corsir, formattted to NTFS.  A few weeks ago I used the Cruzer (32GB, still in its FAT-32 file system) as a backup for the Corsair, simply copying the files.  (Actually, I used  a Cygwin Shell command: cp -pR etc.)  No problem.

Tonight I tried to create a compressed directory on the Cruzer and then create a new backup fromt the corsair.  The slowness was incredible.  I clocked one file in running status - a 153KB PDF. Should have been copied in less than a second and was taking over 1/2 hour before I finally cancelled.  Now I’m in the process of deleting that incomplete comressed directory.  Whoops It has completes, taking well over 90 minutes.

I am quite mystified as to what could be the problem, though it occurs to me that copying & compressed nearly 6GB might have been a problem to start with on the target FAT-32 file system. So what’s the big bottleneck here?  Is it the size or the compression or the fact that I was trying this massive operation on a FAT-32 target?

My workaround is to use Cygwin again; judging by the flashing, it seems to be humming along, though it’s hard to tell.  But no compression at this time.

Hmm,… This leads me into another question, which I will post separately.

Thanks or clues, new family.

– Rasputin Paskudniak