Best way to transfer large files over network.

[Froger96]

Hello all,

first of all, what i want, it to transfer large (10-20Gb) of footage  (clips varying in size) across my network from my main PC to my laptop. i am not currently in possession of a hard drive, and the only way i can see it working is over the network. however, i am not sure how to set this up, i have looked at guides on the internet but my PC does NOT appear on the network. i live in a large(ish) student flats. so about 300 people are all on the network. so i tried making a home group, but that just wanted to connect to the hundreds of other home groups on the network. so what is the best way for me to do it, and how. without having to upload the footage to a cloud service or something similar then download it again.

sorry for any confusion, and thank you in advance.

[Enderman]

how about using a USB drive and plugging it into the PC, putting the file on it, then plugging it into the laptop

[Froger96]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

how about using a USB drive and plugging it into the PC, putting the file on it, then plugging it into the laptop

i thought about that, the largest drive i have (since i lost my large one) is 2gb (as its old) so that would be too inefficient. and too much uploading and downloading. valid suggestion though, i know i should buy a large drive or USB at some point.

[Cralineleader]

Well, if bandwidth is a problem and you're trying to save money, I do recommend getting an HDD.  That's about the best solution in this situation without setting up a whole always-on file server and FTPing stuff out. Cloud is the next best thing over HDD, I'm afraid.

You can get HDDs pretty cheap now, too. Just getting a USB to SATA cable and transferring out would do the job.

[Oshino Shinobu]

If you laptop has an ethernet port, you could use a crossover cable and connect the computers directly. That way you don't have to be visible to other devices on the network, and you don't have issues with bad bandwidth on crowded WiFi networks. 

[SPAS-ID]

Windows File Sharing is the cheapest solution (this work with WiFi), but if that somehow doesn't work, just like these two gentlement said, get HDD

[Froger96]

hmm, yes, i do need to get a hard drive. but i did see cross over cable, but never got one when i should of, i need to preferably move the footage over to my laptop for a trip tomorrow,  i don't overly mind if its a bit slow, as i can leave it over night. just the cloud means that i have to do it in two steps. rather than leave it to go. i don't know if the reason windows isn't working is because it's something i did or something else. do you have any guidance on any software i could use as a replacement?

[Windows7ge]

I'd plug an Ethernet cable directly from the PC to the laptop.

Share the drive with the network under security. (Serious security risk if other people can access the computer over the network)

open up network under the my computer/this PC menu and find your computer.

Login using that computers credentials

Copy the files you want

 

The solution to the security risk would be either make sure you require a user/pass to access the system sharing files or alternatively disconnect the system from the network while sharing files. Not the most professional way of doing it but it'd get the job done and at the very most cost you the price of an Ethernet cable.

[mariushm]

If your laptop has a regular gigabit network card, then the simplest way is to use a regular patch cord, a regular network cable like the one you normally use between computer and switch or router.  It doesn't have to be a crossover cable, gigabit network cards are smart and automatically detect the type of cable and know if they're connected to a network switch or another network card.

You only need a crossover cable if one of the network cards is capable of maximum 100 mbps, those don't have the brains so you do have to use a crossover cable in that case.

 

So connect the laptop to the computer with a regular network cable. Then, go on each computer and configure the network to see each other.

 

PC1 (desktop) :  192.168.0.1  , subnet mask  255.255.255.0

PC2 (laptop) : 192.168.0.2 subnet mask 255.255.255.0

 

Now there's a direct connection between computers. You could use regular windows sharing to transfer files between computers, but I found it more convenient to install a FTP server software on one computer (usually the one that's receiving the videos) and use a ftp client to upload or download files to the other computer.

 

Filezilla FTP server is very easy to configure, here's a fairly good tutorial for the installation and creation of an account (need a username and password to connect to the ftp server, don't want anyone to be able to access files or put files on your server) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyzpDbjA0dM

 

* see below for basic installation

Filezilla FTP client is very good open source ftp client, it works straight from the go, the only thing I seriously recommend doing to configure is going into settings and changing an option to a better one : Edit > Settings > Transfers > File Types > Default transfer type : change from Auto to Binary (see explanation below * )

From Settings, you can also configure the maximum number of simultaneous downloads or uploads, so for example you could upload 3-4 files at the same time, saturating that 1 gbps connection - with windows file sharing, often you're only transferring only one file at a time and at about 800-900 mbps.

 

PS.  If your laptop doesn't have a gigabit network card but your laptop has a usb3 connector, i strongly suggest you go and buy a usb 3 network card. They're cheap.

Now be warned that most usb 3 network cards still use a chip inside that is only capable of usb 2 speeds, basically you'll only reach speeds of up to 480mbps.

 

There is a chip made by Axis called AX88179 which I know for sure is native USB 3 which means it should in theory be capable of up to 5 gbps, so it should do up to 1gbps on the cable as long as your laptop's processor and hard drive is fast enough. There may be other chips but I don't know. 

So, I suggest you search on websites and stores for such cards, I remember I found such an adapter  on eBay for less than $10 but here's for example two of them on US stores:

 

$16 Amazon , no affiliate codes or anything : http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Gigabit-Ethernet-Network-Adapter/dp/B00AQM8586

 

$20 newegg : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817659005

$24 newegg : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833114074

 

 

*  Basically this option forces any transfer to be treated as binary file and not mess it in any way, otherwise if you're downloading a text file or some other text based document from a badly configured ftp server, the ftp client may change the ENTER characters from one character to two characters or the other way around (which visually doesn't affect the text document, but the file size of the document can change, and you may not want that.  

 

* basic ftp server installation

 

basically, install the software, launch the interface after installation, go to Users and create a user and enter a password for the account, then go in Shared folders section and select a folder and check permissions to create and write files and folders (because by default for security, the interface makes everything read only).

In that folder, the ftp client will be able to upload files and folders.  You can basically select a whole drive as the root folder of that user's ftp account. 

If you have several hard drives or partitions, you can be more creative. You create a folder on your drive, let's say C:\TEMP\FTP and set this folder as the main one in shared folders. Then, add each partition to the shared folders list and right click on them and click on Edit aliases. 

For example, you can add the D: partition to Shared Folders, then right click on it and select "Edit aliases" and type there /D  , then don't forget to check the permissions to write, create or delete files and folders, if you want to allow it.

This way, when user will later connect to your ftp server, it will see the files you have in the C:\TEMP\FTP folder (if there are any), but there will also be a folder called "D" and when user enters that folder, he magically sees the files and folders from the D partition.