What is the best option for transferring TBs of data between drives?

MarkC0 · 22 Mar 2013

Hello, I have recently purchased a new 3TB drive for the purposes of backing up my data.

I have two drives that need backing up: a 2TB, and a 1TB. However I am not looking to backup the entirety of those drives. I am looking to transfer roughly 80% of the data on each to the new backup drive. As such cloning the drives onto partitions on the 3TB isn't a suitable option.

As well, I need the files to be accessible so they cannot be placed into an image or archive.

What is the best method to use if transferring several hundred large video files? As a copy-paste through Windows just seems like a bad idea.

chadh89 · 22 Mar 2013

I have always found Teracopy to be fairly good with large amounts of data. Here is a link and you can check into it and see if you want to give it a try: TeraCopy for Microsoft Windows - Code Sector

I'm sure others may have better/alternate suggestions.

LuzTeTT · 22 Mar 2013

A copy-paste through Windows is not a bad idea.
Using third party software is adding an extra layer of processing (or more!) to the file transfer and may serve to increase the risk of failure.

Unless your operating system is severely impaired, I would just do a transfer using Windows.
Windows 7 and Windows 8 make it easier to resume if for what ever reason your transfer stops.
In addition, if you'd like to do multiple transfers at once of individual folders, you will not see any performance decreases. Sometimes it's faster, but barely.

Good luck!

GeneralEclectic · 22 Mar 2013

Look at Robocopy. It's built into Windows. It's far more versatile and granular than simple drag/drop.

For copying large amounts of files, consider using the /create option prior to copying as it will result in non-fragmented directories and MFT at the front of the disk.

MarkC0 · 22 Mar 2013

Thanks for the replies guys. As of now it would seem Robocopy is the best option then. How is it errors? Will it make note of them? As I know with drag-drop it will usually cancel (or freeze XD) when an error occurs, and it's as simple as looking at the last file being transferred to know where to resume from.

EDIT: What's the consensus on RichCopy? It's apparently an extention of Robocopy with more functionality... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/m...spotlight.aspx

GeneralEclectic · 22 Mar 2013

You can specify error-handling behavior for some types of errors. What errors are you expecting?

I'll grant you that the Robocopy documentation takes some study as they're prone to using some unusual unintuitive terms. You'll run into a couple of those in the error-handling area, unfortunately.

Now in years of using Robocopy, I've never encountered a single error. But then, I haven't had a network brainfart during a Robocopy operation either.

Be careful with settings for retries and wait. The defaults are absurd. I usually set them to 1 and 1 and install those settings in the registry with /reg so they're permanent.

The GIU front end doesn't look particularly useful to me, mainly because there are some useful options that don't seem to be available there. I'm sure you can handle the command line version.

Lady Fitzgerald · 22 Mar 2013

I used to use Teracopy in XP but when I tried using it in Win 7 to move a large number of files recently, it would hang up and, eventually, crash. I had to reformat the destination drive a couple times to unscramble it. No more Teracopy for me.

I have hot swap bays in my new rig to use for making backups. I'm going to try using Macrium Reflect to clone my data only drives to backup drives plugged into the appropriate hot swap bay. I already use Reflect to make images of my drives for backups and I am able to set it to verify the image after making it. Hopefully, I'll be able to do the same with cloning.

Edit: I just finished making one backup by cloning and all went well. It went much, much faster than using a USB 2.0 dock.The only downside is only one backup can be put on the HDD (which isn't a problem for me since I have three HDDs for each HDD being backed up).

BDMFAN666 · 23 Mar 2013

As said above. Teracopy owns over WinExe copy. Very quick with large amounts of data

Lady Fitzgerald · 23 Mar 2013

BDMFAN666 said:

As said above. Teracopy owns over WinExe copy. Very quick with large amounts of data

That certainly wasn't my experience. You couldn't pay me to use Teracopy again ever.

BDMFAN666 · 23 Mar 2013

Lady Fitzgerald said:

BDMFAN666 said:

As said above. Teracopy owns over WinExe copy. Very quick with large amounts of data

That certainly wasn't my experience. You couldn't pay me to use Teracopy again ever.

true man, everyone to there own i guess but I will keep an eye on how it goes for me.