[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 14"""
 date="2022-09-05T18:09:59Z"
 content="""
Importing a large tree from a special remote does have a price. git-annex
has to list the files, check to see if these are files it
has imported before (that is the cid lookup), and also has to feed 
the files and sha1s to git to build a tree object. Only once it's built
the tree object can it see that no files have changed and it has nothing
to do.

That is always going to be slower than making a git repository in the
directory and running git-annex add there. Because in that case, git can
use the index to quickly tell what files are modified or new, and skip the
unchanged files.

Bear in mind that the directory special remote is not the only special
remote that supports importing, and so the import interface has to be
general enough to support others. So it can't use the filesystem level
tricks that git is able to use with its index.
"""]]
