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Easiest way to move all my files from one pc to another?

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cypher79

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I will be buying a new pc tower very soon as my current one is kinda old and slow, and the hard drive is full. What would be the easiest way of moving all my music and video files from one to the other? I presume I would need some kind of cable for this but have no idea which one, as there seems to be a mountain of them out there :confused:

Any advice appreciated, thanks
 
It's not a very professional way to do it but if you connect to the internet via a router then just connect both computers to the router and use something like msn or any file transfer programme to send them from one to the other. Saves buying any special cables.
 
actually probably the easiest thing to do would be to mount the doner drive as a slave drive into your new machine once you have built it and fitted anti virus and firewall etc...

This way you can scan your old drive with your new computer and then transfer the files (or leave em on the old disk if need be) on your new machines from real disk to real disk.

Other ways include burning them all to dvd (not a bad plan as then you have back up)

cross over cable between your two pcs via the ethernet ports this will link two machines together.

Or via a router network then just plug the machines in and set it up to share files and then grab em via the new machine
 
Step 1. Step one. Open up your PC
Step 2. Identify your hard drive. If it is IDE< then it will be connected with a wide ribbon cable. If it is SATA, it will be connected with a thin (usually blue) cable.
Step 3. Buy a USB Drive enclosure. (Like this one for a SATA drive or this one for an IDE drive. You can tell which type you have by opening up your PC.
Step 4. Buy new computer.
Step 5. Remove the Hard Drive from your old computer and install it in the USB enclosure, as per the instructions.
Step 6. Plug enclosure into new PC. It will appear as a new drive (probably F: or G:) - you can move stuff around on it, or copy stuff to your new computer. And the bonus is that you have an external drive now, for carrying large files around. Of course, if you want to get the old PC working again, then don't delete anything on that disk. Plug it back into the old computer where you found it.
 
GarfieldLeChat said:
actually probably the easiest thing to do would be to mount the doner drive as a slave drive into your new machine once you have built it and fitted anti virus and firewall etc...

This way you can scan your old drive with your new computer and then transfer the files (or leave em on the old disk if need be) on your new machines from real disk to real disk.

Other ways include burning them all to dvd (not a bad plan as then you have back up)

cross over cable between your two pcs via the ethernet ports this will link two machines together.

Or via a router network then just plug the machines in and set it up to share files and then grab em via the new machine
Click to expand...

So could I use the ethernet cable that I got with my xbox 360 to link the 2 pc's?
 
Step 7. Wonder what to do with the USB enclosure you have just spent £20 on ;)

Good idea if you want an external disk afterwards, but a bit overkill if your putting it back in the old pc.

I'd go with the remove the disk and put it in the new machine, unless you don't want to open it up, in which case I'd go for the router/crossover cable idea.
 
cypher79 said:
So could I use the ethernet cable that I got with my xbox 360 to link the 2 pc's?
Click to expand...

No, a crossover ethernet cable is different from a standard ethernet cable. My way's still easiest as long as you've got a router. Buying a router would be cheaper and leave you with something more useful than Crispy's method.
 
maomao said:
No, a crossover ethernet cable is different from a standard ethernet cable. My way's still easiest as long as you've got a router. Buying a router would be cheaper and leave you with something more useful than Crispy's method.
Click to expand...

Most modern ethernet cards (or motherboards, as will be found in the OP's new machine) will happily use any cable as a x-ver. They've got internal switching to tell between them. Then all you have to do is decipher Windows networking to get the machines to talk!
 
cypher79 said:
So could I use the ethernet cable that I got with my xbox 360 to link the 2 pc's?
Click to expand...
that's a possbility give it a bash see what happens if as cripsy say's it's a modern card it should cope with it but your old machine might not again dependat on the card.

Still how is oyour 360 connneted to the net do you have a router to do this if so then simply unpludg the 360 and plug in the old pc (or new one) to it and transfer via that method
 
Yes I have a router, I will hook both pc's up to it then, this sounds like the easiest and cheapest option, thanks :cool:
 
cypher79 said:
Yes I have a router, I will hook both pc's up to it then, this sounds like the easiest and cheapest option, thanks :cool:
Click to expand...
Yep, that'll do. Look up File Sharing in windows help to get things on the network.
 
I've got mega TBs of data to shift to my new PC.
Anyone used this method?
Direct cable transfer

You can use a special USB transfer cable to directly connect two computers and transfer files. This method is often faster than using an external drive, especially if both PCs have USB 3.0 ports.

The cable usually comes with data transfer software to guide you through the file transfer process. You need to install transfer software on both computers for the cable to function properly.
Click to expand...

Or should I just go with Ye Olde LAN?

I know installing my old HD in the new machine is an option but that's a level of faff I'd like to avoid.
 
It's times like this I want to upgrade my home network to 10 Gbps, but there aren't enough times to justify it.
 
The fastest way, if you have a desktop PC, is to just plumb them both into it and do a direct file copy in Windows. Should at least get you the minimum transfer speed the disks are capable of, which should be on the order of ~150MB/sec for spinning rust on large files.

But looking at what you've got up there, it's a few hundred thousand little files. That's going to murder performance no matter which way you do it, and network should still cap out at ~110MB/sec for large files.
 
editor said:
How does one achieve this 'plumbing'?!
Click to expand...
New PC and old PC, having spinning disk (I'm assuming, given the size of data you're talking about), will be connected by 2 cables each. One of these (the larger) is power, the smaller is data.
Old PC should have a spare power connecter floating about for you to use. Unplug the data connector and the disk from new PC, follow the wires on old PC's disk to find where on the board to plug the data in (most desktops have a minimum of 4 SATA data plugs). Do so, and plug in power. Windows should see the disk at boot. Drag and drop.

Direct copy over the SATA bus has less overhead than going via the network, but then network is simpler and doesn't require opening the box. It wouldn't be worth stopping what you're doing for it - zillions of little files and spinning rust are just going to be slow, as the heads spend more time seeking than they do writing - but good to know while 20TB SSDs remain out of the reach of normal people.
 
Chz said:
New PC and old PC, having spinning disk (I'm assuming, given the size of data you're talking about), will be connected by 2 cables each. One of these (the larger) is power, the smaller is data.
Old PC should have a spare power connecter floating about for you to use. Unplug the data connector and the disk from new PC, follow the wires on old PC's disk to find where on the board to plug the data in (most desktops have a minimum of 4 SATA data plugs). Do so, and plug in power. Windows should see the disk at boot. Drag and drop.

Direct copy over the SATA bus has less overhead than going via the network, but then network is simpler and doesn't require opening the box. It wouldn't be worth stopping what you're doing for it - zillions of little files and spinning rust are just going to be slow, as the heads spend more time seeking than they do writing - but good to know while 20TB SSDs remain out of the reach of normal people.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info but I'm really not mindful to start yanking out hard drives!
 
How many TB? Something doesn't seem right there. I wonder if the cable or another part is running at 100Mbps rather then 1 Gbps?
 
UnderOpenSky said:
How many TB? Something doesn't seem right there. I wonder if the cable or another part is running at 100Mbps rather then 1 Gbps?
Click to expand...
Nah, it's file sizes. There's a minimum write time for a file, and it's quite a lot more than the transfer time for the data in it. It is slow, but I wouldn't call it abnormal. Even the SATA-SATA I suggested above would probably take a day. Plus this is between two operating machines - they have their own business to get on with.
 
Soared up to 53% now!

Speed seems to fluctuate between 4-7 MB/s.

Update: at the heady heights of 57% complete now with occasional bursts up to 10MB/s.
 
Last edited:
When you're just moving huuuuuge files, it gets much better. This is the best you can expect over Gb network from spinning rust to spinning rust:
1729008388196.png
 
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