In my opinion, the best solution is to present more information to the user. Have a progress bar with visible segment breaks showing overall progress, and below it a progress bar for just the current segment. If copying files, show both files-per-second and bytes-per-second estimates, one right below the other. Heck, why not even break down the work remaining display into "small files (&lt;1MB)", "large files (&lt;1GB)", and "huge files (&gt;=1GB)"?<br><br>Show just enough complexity, and the user might intuitively understand that they're seeing a dramatic simplification. Plus, there's a sort of fun behind-the-scenes feeling when the inner workings of a machine, a program, or really anything are partially exposed.