I understand if I call saveOrUpdateCopy() in a detached session, a load is performed and only the changes are updated in the database. If I am tracking the propery changes in my object, is there any way to tell hibernate what what properties to update in the database and skip the load. If not, it will be a nice feature to have

Section: 5.1.3 in the reference manual - dynamic-update might solve your problem. This specifies that UPDATE SQL should be generated at runtime and contain only those columns whose values have changed.