What's the fastest way to transfer files between 2 computers? [closed]
Let's say that I have 80Gb of data to transfer from one computer to another. What's the fastest method to transfer that files?
- Network transfer?
- DVD Recording?
- Copying in a pen drive?
- Removing one HD and placing as secondary in the another PC and copy and paste the files?
- [another suggestion?]
I vote for temporarily removing the hard drive from one computer, installing it into the other computer for the transfer.
I compared a few different methods in linux on a 100Mbit network:
Method Bytes Time Speed
smb mount then cp 733960192 425 1.647 MB/s
scp 730253312 69.48* 10.0241 MB/s
wget using http 736274432 63.2 11.1097 MB/s
rsync - - comparable to scp
- scp includes the time it took my to type in my 40+ character password. Subtract out at least 3-4 seconds.
- scp and wget actually locked up my network connection. putty timed out. top indicated than an entire core was dedicated to the copy.
- I don't have numbers for rsync, but the they were comparable to scp
So, in linux, I could transfer 80GB in 2 hours of ignoring it and not babying the process. I find that preferable to moving a hard drive between computers, since they requires me to actually pay attention and shut things down.
Windows sharing would probably not be as fast as scp.
I'd go for the big external USB drive. I have a 250Gb laptop drive in an enclosure for just that purpose.