Any tricks to connecting old and new pc to move files?

[cohenfive]

simple question, just want to know if there are tricks to hooking up an old and new pc to move large files quickly...i have a patch cable, could use an external usb hd but figured the former is faster. there is a tool in windows that looks like it's geared to help in the connection, should i just use that--and will it cause any issues with exisitng connectivity through our wired home network?

 

[JackMDS]

For direct connect you need a crossover, and the currently Networked computer need two NICs or have to be taken Off the
Network.

 

[bruceb]

Fastest and easiest way is to Slave the Old Hard Drive into the New computer and then
copy whatever personal files you need to the new drive .. power down, remove old drive
and reboot ..very quick and you won't have any networking issues to sort out.

 

[Madwand1]

Comparing regular 100 Mb/s Ethernet and USB 2, you might be better off with USB 2 because it has more bandwidth. This assumes that you have somewhat modern drives and are only transferring things once -- if you're transferring to an external USB drive and then transferring from that to another computer, you're halving your speed, and the regular 100 Mb/s would come much closer.

Gigabit could be faster than either, and doesn't need crossover cables.

And as mentioned, sometimes the fastest way to transfer ver large amounts of data is to move the destination drive to the source computer (or vice versa) and do local copies.

 

[cohenfive]

i'm hesitant to move the hd...i have 2 external usb 2.0 hd's and both pc's have 10/100 nic cards...i'll see what sort of usb cables i have laying around, i do have a 5e patch cable though...