In the past, I have used a USB to transfer a few video files from one computer to another. This time I have over 1 terabyte of movies and shows I’d like to transfer. What is the best method?
I know it will take a very long time
Quickest -
- Take the lid off the source PC put the HDD in it
- Copy the stuff.
- Pull it out
- Put it the other PC,
- Your done
Formatting the HDD my be optional.
Connect both computers over ethernet and rsync the data across. It will still take several hours over gigabit ethernet though.
Parallel port would be faster than serial, but if you’re using serial I’d go with Z modem for the compression and error correction.
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Take the drive from PC 1 and attach to PC 2 => copy / paste
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External drive
What file system do you get the most compatibility out of?
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This will depend on the relative placement of these PCs
I would write it to an nvme drive and swap that drive to the new pc
If you want the bare minimum fast transfer and both PC are in local network, use Dukto-R6. It’s super basic file copying, you just need to drag and drop.
For more advanced options,the others have already pointed it out.
External usb hdd
Shouldn’t actually take too long… I’d just take a couple sata cables. I transferred 6tb in about 12 or 18 hours, idr.
You could go over a wired network.
robocopy or rsync if you can’t place the drive in the target or an external enclosure.
rsync over sshfs over Ethernet.
I transferred 10 Tb over night, but it depends on how many files do you have.10 GbE. 17 minutes.
Of course you need disks that can read/write at that speed (1.25 GB/s). Should not be a problem for NVMe SSDs.
rsyncover a wired network. That way, I can stop and resume at any time.Over LAN with flavored solution of your choice.
Other than that, I use one of my spare drives and my USB docking station if I need to move it outside of my own house. I never really had a need for dedicated external drives but a docking station is handy for many things, this being one of them.