What is the fastest way of transfering files from 2tb to 4tb HD

Ztruker said:

I use a program called Mirror Folder for file backup along with imaging. It's not free ($39 US) but I've been using it for a long time and it handles things like this perfectly. There are free file sync programs that do this as well.

The beauty of using a sync program is once you set it up, you can forget about it except to monitor and make sure it's working correctly. It runs in the background and will take as long as necessary to copy the files to the mirror/backup location. Once done then only new or changes files will be mirrored.

I have mine setup to check every two hours for active folders and every four for less used folders.

The problem with an automatic backup program that mirrors a drive is any viruses you may pickup will also get mirrored. Also, if you lose a file through accidental deletion or corruption, or files get locked by a crypto locker, your "backup" will also lose the file or get locked. Having the "backup" drive permanently connected to the computer increases the chances that you can lose data.

The safest backups are those that are kept on drives stored externally which get connected to the computer only long enough to update the backup. Also, since even backup drives can fail, you should also have at least two identical backup drives, preferably one onsite and one offsite.

One exception to the automatic backup rule are good, paid for cloud backup services that have versioning (mere cloud storage sites unreliable and insecure; the freebies are notorious for disappearing with little or no notice). Carbonite, for example, has thirty day versioning. Whenever a file is deleted or changed, Carbonite will keep that file in your account for thirty days before deleting it. If you have a disaster and need to recover all your versioned files, you can buy time by freezing your account until you can recover from the disaster.

I don`t see why you would need a program at all when copy and paste works fine.

AddRAM said:

I don`t see why you would need a program at all when copy and paste works fine.

Because when you need to move massive amounts of data from one drive to another, Copy and Paste does not work fine. It tends to have some errors that do not get corrected or reported and takes far longer than good programs designed for the job (which also check for copy errors and report any that may happen).

You should never move massive amounts of data at once.

I`ve never had any issues copying and pasting, with anything.

AddRAM said:

You should never move massive amounts of data at once.

I`ve never had any issues copying and pasting, with anything.

Why not move massive amounts of data, as long as you have software that can handle it? How else would transfer all of your data from a full large drive to an even larger drive (unless you did it manually in small batches, which would be extremely labor intensive and highly subject to human error)?

I have had problems when moving large amounts of data using copy and paste; it took a long time and some files didn't copy over and/or were corrupted without knowing which ones were affected (the biggest problems were file path lengths). As I've already said, the only time I had a clone fail when using Macrium Reflect, the source drive had been corrupted. Cloning is a simple drive to drive procedure that, with the correct software, is reliable, safer, and faster than copy and paste. It's a one step procedure; tell the software to clone such and such partition(s) or the entire disk to another, then walk away and forget it until it finishes. Easy peasy.

Programs for moving large amounts of data, such as Teracopy, were written because of the problems using copy and paste was having. In the case of Teracopy, it worked great in XP (I used it frequently) but some people, including me, had problems with it in Win 7. Fortunately, there are plenty of other programs that can accomplish the same thing. I just use Macrium Reflect and FreeFileSync simply because I already have them on my computers and I'm already reasonably familiar with them

Lady Fitzgerald said:

You should have already had a backup in place before the need for cloning came up. What were you using to do the clone? I've had only one clone fail using Macrium Reflect and that was because the source drive was corrupted. Fortunately, I already had multiple backups in place and one of them saved my bacon data.

On reflection, I already had backup images (worst case scenario; they would have been 1 month old).

I used Clonezilla to try to clone my system.
My system wouldn't boot with the cloned drive, but it would boot with the original.

I used Macrium to apply my partition images and then the new drive worked.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Imaging, although essential for backing up System files, is an extremely inefficient way to backup data. Every time you make an image, unless you are using incremental or differential imaging, both of which can be problematic (many people, including me, recommend only making full images because of the potential for problems), you have to image everything on the disk or partition you are imaging. Also, full images need a lot of room if you want to have more than one image. A folder/file syncing program, on the other hand, only has to work with files that were added, changed, or deleted since the previous backup. Less space is required and updates to a backup are much, much faster.

I have TBs of backup images.

Based on the warning messages, Folder/File synching can wipe out everything with one wrong click (i.e. transposing the synching direction).

AddRAM said:

I don`t see why you would need a program at all when copy and paste works fine.

Copying using the OS is ridiculously slow.
It's especially slow if you have lots of tiny files.

Imaging usually runs "flat out" for the entire duration.

lehnerus2000 said:

...Based on the warning messages, Folder/File synching can wipe out everything with one wrong click (i.e. transposing the synching direction)...

That may depend on the program used. I use profiles I made when I use FreeFileSync to backup my data so that isn't a danger. If I click on the wrong profile for the backup HDD I have plugged in, FFS will just throw up an error the essentially says wrong profile, stupid. No harm done.

The only danger I can see is if one sets up the profile bass ackwards. That can be avoided by paying close attention when setting up the profile. Also, if one has two backups (one offsite and one onsite) already in place (which everyone should have), such as made by cloning, the second backup will protect one's data if the profile gets set up wrong. Once the profile has been properly set up, no more danger.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

The only danger I can see is if one sets up the profile bass ackwards.

I seem to be becoming Dyslexic, so I'm likely to do that.

lehnerus2000 said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

The only danger I can see is if one sets up the profile bass ackwards.

I seem to be becoming Dyslexic, so I'm likely to do that.

I am mildly Dyslexic and a senior citizen so don't feel alone (having ADHD doesn't help). Remember the old adage that says measure twice, cut once? For me, it's measure several times, cut once and still manage to mess up every so often. I've learned to measure twice, set it aside for a while, measure again, then cut.