LebGeeks

darkredbbb

Member

Best ways to transfer files between two computers

I already have an old Sony VAIO notebook equipped with FireWire 400 and I recently got a new MacBook Pro that's equipped with FireWire 800, and I was wondering if I can transfer about 250+ GB of files between the two computers through FireWire. How is it possible? Are the 400 and 800 adapters different in shape? What kind of cable do I need? It must be a pretty silly question to most but I'm not much of a hardware guy :rolleyes:

Also, are there any better ways to transfer big files between two computers?

rolf

Member

Re: Best ways to transfer files between two computers

On the software level, you will have the highest performance using dd to copy the whole partition. In my previous work, I had to copy OS images to the host machine. I did that bootting ubuntu on them and then connecting a USB drive and doing the copy with dd, tweaking the -bs (blocksize) parameter (i think i used 32000 - but do testing). I got rates of about 20 Megabytes/second - according to the target laptop, that is 1GB/minute approx, which is pretty good considering that this was like 2 years ago, over USB, on a regular external disk, and copying to laptops that were 2+ years old (to their internal drive...).
I guess you can get much faster number, the bottom line is give dd a try. I can help if you are not a linux guy. I think it's included in OSX anyway. On the other hand, if you dont want to copy the whole partition, and copying per file basis is good enough (that's possible since you have new hardware) then dont bother.
And yeah firewire is generally faster then USB.
But if you really want maximum speed, disassemble both laptops, and remove their drives and plug them in a desktop pc (i guess they're both sata), then using linux transfer whatever files you want, or the whole partition as instructed above, if you want to go really fast. Nothing beats that.

Last edited by rolf (May 20 2010)

Aly

Member

Re: Best ways to transfer files between two computers

You could have already done it by using a cheap Cat5e cross cable (supposing that vaio has a 100mbps Ethernet and the Mac Gigabit Ethernet) instead of posting here and waiting people's replies

darkredbbb

Member

Re: Best ways to transfer files between two computers

On the software level, you will have the highest performance using dd to copy the whole partition. In my previous work, I had to copy OS images to the host machine. I did that bootting ubuntu on them and then connecting a USB drive and doing the copy with dd, tweaking the -bs (blocksize) parameter (i think i used 32000 - but do testing). I got rates of about 20 Megabytes/second - according to the target laptop, that is 1GB/minute approx, which is pretty good considering that this was like 2 years ago, over USB, on a regular external disk, and copying to laptops that were 2+ years old (to their internal drive...).
I guess you can get much faster number, the bottom line is give dd a try. I can help if you are not a linux guy. I think it's included in OSX anyway. On the other hand, if you dont want to copy the whole partition, and copying per file basis is good enough (that's possible since you have new hardware) then dont bother.
And yeah firewire is generally faster then USB.
But if you really want maximum speed, disassemble both laptops, and remove their drives and plug them in a desktop pc (i guess they're both sata), then using linux transfer whatever files you want, or the whole partition as instructed above, if you want to go really fast. Nothing beats that.

Thanks a lot for the reply, but I'd rather it if I start with a clean OS, therefore only copying individual files. Also, it would take me more time to install Linux on my Pentium IV desktop computer than copying the files through a cable

You could have already done it by using a cheap Cat5e cross cable (supposing that vaio has a 100mbps Ethernet and the Mac Gigabit Ethernet) instead of posting here and waiting people's replies

I'm getting my new computer delivered in 5 days, so I have plenty of time to ask around, but thanks for the Ethernet cable tip, I didn't know that it was possible  much cheaper than buying a FireWire cable.

Aly

Member

Re: Best ways to transfer files between two computers

Ah ok then mabrook