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

  • Bob_Spud@alien.topBEnglish
    3·
    11 months ago

    Quickest -

    1. Take the lid off the source PC put the HDD in it
    2. Copy the stuff.
    3. Pull it out
    4. Put it the other PC,
    5. Your done

    Formatting the HDD my be optional.

  • cmnyboEnglish
    3·
    11 months ago

    Connect both computers over ethernet and rsync the data across. It will still take several hours over gigabit ethernet though.

  • NyaaTell@alien.topBEnglish
    2·
    11 months ago

    1. Take the drive from PC 1 and attach to PC 2 => copy / paste

    2. External drive

  • beholdthepineapple@alien.topBEnglish
    2·
    11 months ago

    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.

  • smstnitc@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    I have a PC in a spot of my house I can’t get a cable to. But that’s the PC I do my Blu Ray ripping and encoding on, so I keep a 5tb external drive for moving the files to my NAS afterwards. Sometimes it would take days over WiFi instead of minutes to hours over USB 3 twice. (and piss off my wife for saturating the wifi, heh)

      • smstnitc@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        My experience with powerline is pretty terrible. And there is no better place for it sadly.

  • WikiBox@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    USB 3.1 Gen2 is hard to beat. 10Gbps. But for HDDs the HDDs themselves will be the bottleneck. For sustained file transfers, perhaps no more than up to 3Gbps, even if installed in the same PC. Good SATA SSDs may manage closer to 6Gbps. NVMe SSDs are likely to saturate USB 3.1 Gen2. Then PCI-e directly between installed drives is the fastest. Normal cabled network is only 1Gbps.

    File transfers to/from external multibay USB DAS can be done in parallel, involving multiple HDDs, and come close to saturating 10Gbps USB3.1 Gen2 speeds.

    Then there is thunderbolt.

    Start a rsync transfer when you go to bed. In the morning it will most likely be done.

  • ZeroSulu@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    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.

  • 4thelulzgamer@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    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.

  • Sea_Caterpillar5296@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Shouldn’t actually take too long… I’d just take a couple sata cables. I transferred 6tb in about 12 or 18 hours, idr.

  • diamondsw@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Fastest “normal” way would be write it to a USB 3 drive on machine 1, read from drive later on machine 2. An SSD would be best. Even with having to do the write and read in two phases, I’d still expect it to be faster than a 1G network.

    (Less normal ways would be things like Thundrerbolt SSDs, 10G or 40G ethernet for direct transfer, etc. But if you have that kind of tech already in place, then you’re not asking. ;)