Efficiency Question - Wordlists or rules-on-the-fly

[f(x)00x0]

Hi,  I am new to cracking  I was curious is it more efficient to pipe wordlists that are already compiled together with rules or to use hashcat to append/alter a smaller wordlist and have the rule applied as needed?


This is not an either or question  but rather a question if generating extensive wordlists allows for more speed.


I think there a pros and cons to both


Relying on a small wordlist and altering it with rules  requires less preparation time  ( less words in the list )  but for each new hash to be cracked it would have to restart the rule sequence.

A large wordlist with the rules already applied requires more preparation however it seems to me it should be quicker  as it doesn't have to process a function for each word.


Anyways  looking for anybody who has practical experience in these matters, I'm  just a padawan looking for a Jedi .



Thanks!

[undeath]

For slow hashes it does not really matter but for fast hashes piping is slower because everything needs to be transferred from CPU to GPU.