Moving data

[drwex]

Here's a bit of a poser. Let's say you had 10-12 gig of data on one PC and wanted to move it to another, with minimal fuss and no futzing about with opening the cabinet. What method would you use?

USB stick? USB hard drive? Burn multiple DVDs? In theory (I think) I could pay Mozy another $X/month and add another PC to my remote back-up plan. Once I had backed up the data off PC A I think it would let me restore it to PC B, but I haven't investigated that in detail.

ETA: I should have mentioned that they're in different locations and completely separate networks.

Comments

[harlequinaide.livejournal.com]

I'd use an external hard drive, but keep a TB backup HD around for this kind of thing. I've used rewritable CDs before; it's a lot of work and I always miss key files.

[pancua.livejournal.com]

I vote the external HD as well

USB drive

[taura-g.livejournal.com]

Is what I would typically use for something like that.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

????? I can only assume that both of these machines run some flavor of fscking Windows, because on no other OS would this be a question worth any contemplation.

But even Windows can do this easily enough; what's wrong with using your network cables and just copying it over? Using a USB hard drive would be faster, though.

Is there something you haven't said that makes this a hard thing to do?

They're on separate networks

[drwex]

Sorry, I should have specified. If they were PCs on the same net/subnet I would just copy directly from one to the other. However, they're in different physical locations and share no networking closer than the wide-open 'net.

[inahandbasket]

Gigabit LAN would be faster than USB 2.0 actually. ;-)

Use a USB stick or hard drive if they're not on a fast LAN.

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

We have a 40 GB external hard drive that attaches through two USB connectors. It's not super-fast, but it IS easy, and it can transfer fairly large amounts of data from machine to machine. We've had it for years, so I imagine that something like it isn't very expensive these days.

[ringrose.livejournal.com]

Assuming windows, and both machines are on the same net (for example copying between machines on your home network), set the source machine to have the data disk remote mountable. Then mount it on the other machine, drag, drop. Depending on your network it might take a while but it's pretty easy.

More details, assuming windows XP:

On the source PC:
Right-click "start" and choose "explore" from the menu. Open "My Computer" so you can see the disk drives, and right-click on the drive you want to share. Select the "Sharing and security" option. Set the options to "Share this folder" and whatever else you think appropriate; yes, "C$" is the "normal" name for C: when it's shared.

On the target PC:
Start and explore again. Under "tools", map network drive. For drive, it'll have picked something unused on the target PC like "X:". The folder will be "\\source-pc\C$" (or whatever is appropriate). You can use dotted addresses or IPs if necessary instead of the source-pc name. I don't suggest using the "Reconnect at logon" option, and "Browse" is unlikely to be useful.
Now you can, while logged in to the target PC, open the source PC's mounted filesystem by just going to X: (or whatever drive you mounted). Copy with whatever method you want, including drag and drop (which may involve leaving it running overnight depending on the network speed).

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Install Cygwin and initiate rsync-over-ssh-tunnel, through a shared third host if necessary.

That's "no fuss"?

[drwex]

It seems like a fair amount of fuss (though I do have cygwin installed). I'd have to figure out how to land an SSH session at the remote PC as well. Mozy seems like a simpler method.

Re: That's "no fuss"?

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

No, it's "minimal fuss."

Whether it's less fuss than the other solutions depends on the relative amount of fuss involved in:

* finding and/or purchasing a 12GB USB stick (!)
* trucking a physical storage drive around to your various locations
* sitting around in a data center or friends house waiting for an 8 hour USB data transfer to finish

Myself, I would rather spend a couple of hours futzing with software to figure out how to get sshd running under cygwin, and let the data transfer run unattended as long as it takes to finish. YMMV, of course.

[davidfcooper.livejournal.com]

Compare the cost of a 12 gig USB stick to the cost Moby charges for adding another PC and bear in mind that the stick is a one time expense whereas adding another PC to Moby will increase your Moby bill on an on-going basis.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

In order of preference:

1. firewire drive
2. usb drive
2. usb stick
4. very long ethernet cable
5. paid dropbox account
6. 3x dvd-r
7. 12x cd-r
8. 8,778x floppy disks.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

hollerith cards!

[unseelie.livejournal.com]

i moved 14 gig from my laptop at my GFs house to my desktop at home, and thus to my external back up today; via IPOD!
all are PCs.

SharePod is a software that allows PCs to treat a Ipod as an additional external hard drive; as well as specifically a replacement for Itunes as well for music swapping.

(the data was a bunch of PDFs, movies, music, jpgs, etc) So I am in favor of External USB hard drive.

[caulay.livejournal.com]

Only 12 gig? USB stick for convenience (16GB models can be had for ~$20 on-line), USB HD if you don't want to accidentally loose it.

I think I'm leaning toward the drive

[drwex]

I hadn't realize just how ridiculously cheap this stuff had gotten. Looks like I can pick up a 1TB Seagate for $80.

Re: I think I'm leaning toward the drive

[caulay.livejournal.com]

Yep. Technology marches on.

I've got a 1 TB on my desk as back up insurance. And another one sitting around full of various media that ahf "acquired" from her day job (they weren't using it anymore and if they ever notice it's gone, she can just bring it back).

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Oh, heh, it's that hard to upload to a windows machine over the internet?

Install a free windows FTP server to upload to on the receiving end?
http://www.xlightftpd.com/ ? I'm not familiar with it. "windows ftpd" looks like useful google search terms. Of course, being ftp, that involves transmitting a password in cleartext over the internet.

You could download an ubuntu CD, burn it, boot it on the receiving end, run "sudo aptitude install openssh-server", and then upload to it via scp. (Ubuntu CDs boot directly to fully functional linux without installing.) The putty pscp.exe program might be the simplest way to scp from windows, no install. Just something like "c:\pscp -r c:\ user@othermachine:". You would need to mount one of your windows partitions to write to.

I'd probably use sshd under cygwin on the receiving machine.

Also possibly useful: http://sshwindows.sourceforge.net/
"OpenSSH for Windows is a free package that installs a minimal OpenSSH server and client utilities in the Cygwin package without needing the full Cygwin installation."

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Oh, you could just as easily run the server stuff on the sending end instead.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

WinSCP is likely to be easier on the client end than pscp.exe.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

A cygwin sshd setup howto: http://www.noah.org/ssh/cygwin-sshd.html