best way to xfer a file from one PC to another?

[drewson99]

I have two computers that I use for authoring. sometimes I wish I could easily transfer files from one to the other, by networking them somehow. Sometimes I want to edit on one and burn on another.

I would like something fast, like firewire. I used to do this with two of my ony VAIOs and it was a piece of cake because it came with Sony's proprietary software to do so (SmartConnect).

The reason I need speed is because the files are going to be 4-10 GB at a time. I don't mind if it takes 5-10 minutes to do a transfer, but I don't want it to take more than a half hour or so because my current method is to burn a data -RW and pop it into the other computer, which taes over an hour in total.

I have also considered Gigabit Ethernet, but it is a bit costly for the cards.

I already have a 4 port router, though.

Anybody mae this work with firewire? Or perhaps 10/100 Ethernet (how long would it take for a 10 GB file to cross a 10/100?)

Andy

[kitty]

10/100 ethernet is inexpensive. I don't have speed specs for you. Firewire between the 2 works also - I believe WindowsXP supports this natively.

[BJ_M]

firewire networking is great but fastest way is to get a removable drive and swap it

[Tbear]

I have done the 10/100 ethernet. It takes less then a 30 min for file transfer of 10Gigs. Just make sure you hub and cards are 100Mps fast ethernet. If you hub is not 10/100, I would suggest going peer to peer at 100Mps. Just need a crossover cable then.

[vitualis]

As others have stated, 100Mbit Ethernet is all you need if you are willing to wait the 30 or so minutes.

There is nothing faster, than what BJ_M suggested though and that's what I used to do -- a simple removable drive and removable drive bay on your PCs. Or perhaps you could look into getting an external HDD firewire kit...

Regards.

[SaSi]

100Mbit ethernet provides a sustained throughput of 2~3 Mb/sec (if you have full duplex cards connected to a 100Mbit switch). This gives a speed between 120~180 Mb min, which I verified copying a 640Mb file across such a network. It took exactly 5 minutes, so a 4Gb file would take 30 minutes and a 10Gb file would take over an hour.

Using a hot swappable external firewire disk should give you 12Mb/sec speed (as reported by some benchmarks I've seen). USB 2.0 is 3-4 times slower bringing it close to Ethernet speed.

I've also been told that XP support firewire connection between 2 PCs, but the technical part I don't know, so unless you can do that, the next best thing is an external firewire disk (provided both PCs have firewire ports).

[jimbola]

I would use gigabit ethernet. I've seen cards at CompUSA for about $80 USD. I think it was a Linksys card. I've never used a Linksys gigabit ether card before so I couldn't tell you if it is any good. I would try and get a 64-bit 66MHz PCI card at least. That should give you a peak throughput rate of about 528Mb/sec. Your bottle neck at the point will probably be your disk drive unless you have a RAID installed. If you don't have any other computers to connect on the network you could get a crossover cable and save a few bucks.

[Nelson37]

You could get 2 removable drive bay/cartridge combinations for about $60 - $80, use standard IDE drives, move 80 Gig in about 10 seconds. They are even available hot-swappable but you must have a RAID card that supports this. Be careful of the handle/latching mechanism and the lock, some of the cheaper ones are not as durable as they could be.

A Firewire or USB 2.0 external drive and/or enclosure would be the other fastest way, somewhat more expensive and with port requirements but better portability to outside systems.

[drewson99]

if I wanted to go firewire or 10/100 perr-to-peer, how and where do I change/adjust static IP settings (I assume I need to muck with that so they recognize eachother)

i know naught about DOS and am running Win2K. am I over my own head?

[whiplash]

Andy,

There are a lot of variables in the information you have given. You say that you have a 10/100 router. Are the PCs that you are using connected to it and communicating through it, such as to get to the internet? If this is true then the PCs can probably talk to each other through the same connections. They have probably been configured with DHCP to get their IP addresses so you will not have to change them or create static IP addresses.

1.) To see if they are talking to each other, bring up a command prompt on each PC and enter:

ipconfig

It will return the IP address that the PC is using. Something like:

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 3:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : spire.com
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.1.3
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.1.1

If the IP address returned is 169.x x.x or 0.0.0.0 your devices are not talking through your 10/100 router or DHCP is not working. I would suggest reading the manual that came with the router for information on how to set it up.

If you get any other IP address try pinging between the 2 PC:

2.) From the command prompt on PC_A ping the IP address of PC_B

ping [IP address of PC_B]
C:\>ping 172.16.1.21

Pinging 172.16.1.21 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 172.16.1.21: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 172.16.1.21: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 172.16.1.21: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 172.16.1.21: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128

If you get a reply, the devices are talking.

If you get "Request Timed Out" or other message, try pinging the IP address of the router (Default Gateway in the ipconfig command from step 1). If the router responds on PC_A, PC_B has issues, and vice versa. If neither PC can talk to the router consult the documentation of the router to setup the network.

3.) If the devies can ping each other follow the link to a Microdoft How To on how to set up file sharing. Make sure you setup users permissions with passwords, for security purposes. Your router should also be performing some sort of firewall capabilities if you are using an always on internet connection, such as DSL or Cable.

HOW TO: Share Files and Folders Over a Network for Workgroups in Windows 2000

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q301281&sd=tech


This link providesmore Windows 2000 How Tos:

Windows 2000 Professional How-Tos

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/itsolutions/howto/2prohow.asp

Hope this helps.