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?
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
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.
If you have a Mac, Disk Target Mode is great, especially if both computers have Firewire 800. You connect them to each other with Firewire, and then reboot one in Disk Target Mode, by holding down t when it starts up. That computer then acts as a Firewire hard drive, allowing very fast transfer speeds without removing any disks. Additionally, it often works even if the computer is unbootable due to a problem with the operating system.
Depending on how fast/reliable your network is I would either go with the network or removing the hard drive and just copying.
I have always found doing a direct copy disk to disk slightly faster and more reliable, however I also have a Gigabit network at home so lately just copy directly across.
To ensure I get the best performance on Windows I do however use Robocopy. It works well both across the network and drive to drive.
80 gigabytes is 640 gigabits. Typical home ethernet is 100 Mbps. So, I guess figure on 10,000 seconds - less than three hours. Probably somewhat slower if you are using wifi. But you can just leave it go without worrying about. I wouldn't want to deal with that many DVDs, and my flash drives aren't much bigger.
Although last time I tried a long transfer I found out that I had been using the wrong power supply for my hub.
Most likely, your hard disks (source and target) can do about 100MB/s. Gigabit ethernet, provided all the network hardware involved is decent should be able to get close enough that network is easiest.
If you have particularly fast harddisks, or a particularly slow network, you may be able to save time by moving the harddisk into the target machine and doing a local copy. If you get 80MB/s or more, it is probably not worth the hassle.
Surprised no one else has mentioned this, but FTP is a good option. I'm copying a 200gb virtual machine clone of our server to another machine, and I'm getting very good speeds (30MB/s) over LAN, plus it's resumable. Filezilla Server on the source and Filezilla client on the target, free-as-in-whatever and getting the job done.
If you're copying files over the network, I would do something other than just dragging files with Windows Explorer. There are utilities that will be able to copy it faster than the built in way.
If you are going to do it repeatedly (if not, you'd be done by now whatever method you chose ;)), I'd connect the two computers via a crossover cable and gigabit ethernet. Turn on jumbo frame support, and if possible don't use windows file sharing (smb). This will be about as fast as an average drive can write under ideal conditions, so there's not much to gain by swapping disks.
Some years ago, I believe the fastest transfer was FireWire (usually common with Mac). This is now outdated. I would reply on a USB 3 flash drive or external hard disk.
DVD or BlueRay (any compact disc type of burning) is painfully slow. Network transfer would be slower than a USB 3 too.
Removing the HD and placing it on the new PC - yes. However at the end of the day, the removal and replacement also take time...
