Copying large files — BufferedReader vs FileChannel

When copying large files java.nio.channels.FileChannel takes 20% less time than java.io.BufferedReader. On an average FileChannel takes 25 seconds for each run and BufferedReader takes 30 seconds for each run. Here is the code used for the performance test. Size of test.txt is 1 GB. Used a buffer of size 8 KB as it was giving the best results. [Environment - -Windows 7/3GB RAM/i3 CPU M 370 @ 2.40GHz]

import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
import java.io.BufferedOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.nio.channels.FileChannel;

public class CopyFile {
	//Size of the test file is 1GB.
	private static final String INPUT_FILE_PATH = "test.txt";
	private static final String OUTPUT_FILE_PATH_FOR_FILE_CHANNEL = "test1.txt";
	private static final String OUTPUT_FILE_PATH_FOR_BUFFERED_READER = "test2.txt";
	private static final int DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE = 1024 * 8;

	public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
		Timer t = new Timer();

		t.start();
		copyFileUsingBufferedReader();
		System.out.println("Copying file using buffered reader takes " + t.end() 
                                                         + " milliseconds");

		t.start();
		copyFileUsingFileChannel();
		System.out.println("Reading file using file channel takes " + t.end() 
                                                         + " milliseconds");
	}

	private static void copyFileUsingFileChannel() throws IOException {
		FileChannel source = null;
		FileChannel destination = null;
		
		try {
			source = new FileInputStream(new File(INPUT_FILE_PATH)).getChannel();
			destination = new FileOutputStream(
                        new File(OUTPUT_FILE_PATH_FOR_FILE_CHANNEL)).getChannel();
			
			//This fails with Map Failed exception on large files
			//destination.transferFrom(source, 0, source.size());
			
			ByteBuffer buf = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE);
	        while((source.read(buf)) != -1) {
	                buf.flip();
	                destination.write(buf);
	                buf.clear();
	        }
		} finally {
			if (source != null) {
				source.close();
			}
			if (destination != null) {
				destination.close();
			}
		}
	}

	private static void copyFileUsingBufferedReader() throws IOException {

		BufferedInputStream source = new BufferedInputStream(
                new FileInputStream(new File(INPUT_FILE_PATH)));
		BufferedOutputStream destination = new BufferedOutputStream(
                new FileOutputStream(new File(OUTPUT_FILE_PATH_FOR_BUFFERED_READER)));
		byte[] buffer = new byte[DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE];

		try {
	        int n = 0;
	        while (-1 != (n = source.read(buffer))) {
	        	destination.write(buffer, 0, n);
	        }
	        destination.flush();
		} finally {
			if (source != null) {
				source.close();	
			}
			if (destination != null) {
				destination.close();				
			}
		}
	}

}

class Timer {
	long s;

	public Timer() {
	}

	public long start() {
		s = System.currentTimeMillis();
		return s;
	}

	public long end() {
		return System.currentTimeMillis() - s;
	}
}