Question about the transfering of data to a new computer - Hardware & Software

So I've built many computers. But I've always just transferred the data via external HDD to the new one. I have a LOT of stuff needing to be transferred, so I was thinking about just putting my current drive in my new computer, but it has the operating system on it. If I boot from my new SSD in my new rig, what can I do about the file structure and locations on my old drive. I know you can tell it to reference "My Documents" and all that stuff to somewhere else, but I want to keep it just as a backup drive and transfer everything from my current 2TB Seagate to my 3TB WD drive. What's the easiest way to do data transfer?

If you have two ethernet cables and a router/switch, you can just network the two PC's up and share the files/drives across the network of two PC's and a router/switch. I did it before between a laptop and my own PC and it worked just fine.

[QUOTE=supervoltage;51521411]If you have two ethernet cables and a router/switch, you can just network the two PC's up and share the files/drives across the network of two PC's and a router/switch. I did it before between a laptop and my own PC and it worked just fine.[/QUOTE] Or use [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_crossover_cable"]this[/URL].

Why don't you just buy some SATA cables and have both HDDs? One for data and for OS. Personally I have 4 - OS, Data, Gaming, Programs More coming very soon :).

Hi @rovar! You can indeed connect both machines via Ethernet cable and router, and this will give you a pretty good results, so I agree with what @supervoltage suggested. :) As for the other suggested option, if you want you can connect the drive to the new PC though, but do have in mind that while you will be able to access the mass storage data on the HDD most of the programs won't run because of the registries. With that said you can keep it as a backup drive if it doesn't matter whether or no the software installed is going to run, and you can transfer everything by simply cloning the content with Acronis True Image WD Edition (furthermore, you can use the program after that as a backup software if you want). You can download the program from here: [url]http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=XBGSHA[/url] And also can follow the steps in this KB article to complete the process: [url]http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=QztV5g[/url] Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions you may have. :)

So, what you want to do is clone the 2TB disk to the 3TB disk? There's plenty of free utilities, though I don't know which ones are good. You could try clonezilla unless someone knows some better software.

[QUOTE=Humin;51533301]So, what you want to do is clone the 2TB disk to the 3TB disk? There's plenty of free utilities, though I don't know which ones are good. You could try clonezilla unless someone knows some better software.[/QUOTE] Honestly, Clonezilla is really good for being free. You will probably need to resize it to the full 3 TB after cloning it though. I haven't had good luck with the on the fly resizing in Clonezilla, but maybe that's because I've only used it on boot drives.

It's not free but i use acronis alot. Works absolutely fine.

I suppose I should have mentioned that Macrium Reflect has a free non-commercial version that can clone drives.

[QUOTE=Amic;51521428]Or use [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_crossover_cable"]this[/URL].[/QUOTE] Or just use a regular ethernet cable as modern ethernet cards can deal with it [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-dependent_interface[/url]

[QUOTE=Mighty_Miro_WD;51532948]As for the other suggested option, if you want you can connect the drive to the new PC though, but do have in mind that while you will be able to access the mass storage data on the HDD most of the programs won't run because of the registries.[/QUOTE] Actually, most programs will function without any problems (I have done this before), and if they don't you will usually be able to click on the uninstall.exe file (wont necessarily be called that) and go to "Repair program" which will place the necessary entries into the registry. Some probably wont, particularly proprietary software like Microsoft Office. I don't think this is the OP's intention anyway, but thanks for bringing this up. Back to OP: using Ethernet to transfer files will be incredibly fast (Ethernet is so much faster than it used to be) as others have mentioned, but no method will be faster than directly sending them over SATA. Think about it this way: SATA > Ethernet > SATA SATA > SATA This doesn't apply with external HDD as then it becomes SATA > USB > USB > SATA, and even USB 3.0 isn't anywhere near as fast (although USB speeds have been rising rapidly over the years). At the end of the day it's all about what resources you have available, just look at it from a bottleneck perspective to find out which way is best for you.

USB 3.0 is definitely faster than ethernet.

[QUOTE=Levelog;51538996]USB 3.0 is definitely faster than ethernet.[/QUOTE] Sorry I did mean faster than direct SATA, but really? Maybe I'm just buying the wrong USB sticks but I was always certain the next thing down from SATA was Ethernet...

[QUOTE=Neguido;51539041]Sorry I did mean faster than direct SATA, but really? Maybe I'm just buying the wrong USB sticks but I was always certain the next thing down from SATA was Ethernet...[/QUOTE] Yeah, gotta just not buy cheaper crap. If you spend some money on a drive you can get upwards of 400MB/s read for flash drives. As for external hard drives that really just depends on the drive inside. (And the controller)

[QUOTE=Levelog;51539052]Yeah, gotta just not buy cheaper crap. If you spend some money on a drive you can get upwards of 400MB/s read for flash drives. As for external hard drives that really just depends on the drive inside. (And the controller)[/QUOTE] I wont deny that USB flash drives are a great, simple way to transfer files and I've even run live Ubuntu distros on them in the past. I wouldn't suggest this to anybody else if they didn't know what they were doing, especially on the cheaper drives which have sector failures after only a few hundred read/writes. On the more well-build drives it's a pretty reasonable setup for test benches, though. Anyway thanks for this info, I sure will need to look into it sometime as I tend to transfer quite large amounts of data via Ethernet.

[QUOTE=Neguido;51539041]Sorry I did mean faster than direct SATA, but really? Maybe I'm just buying the wrong USB sticks but I was always certain the next thing down from SATA was Ethernet...[/QUOTE] Gigabit is fast, but USB 3.0 is five times that. Your actual limiting factor on USB 3.0 is the quality of the storage itself, although some SSDs could max it out. Network protocols also tend to create a lot of overhead when transferring several small files in succession. Which isn't a problem with USB.