Mirrored hard drive, from old Windows 10 PC to newer Windows 8.1 PC?

I just got an Ethernet connection between these two PC's working, to transfer data from the older Windows 10 PC to the newer Windows 8.1 PC but I may not have thought this out very well. I checked my old PC's drive and I have 239GB of space used. Some of that is programs but much of it is data that needs to be moved to the new PC now. So the Ethernet connection may just be too slow.

But on the old PC, I have a Thermaltake BlacX ST0005U drive docking station. I've mirrored the drive to it. It's plugged into the ESATA port in the old PC and only has USB 2 in addition to that.

The new PC doesn't appear to have an ESATA port but does have USB 3 ports.

So I'm thinking it might be faster to move all this data by getting a ST0005U-D updated version of the docking station for the new PC. It has USB 3 as well as ESATA III. It could be plugged into the old PC, the drive could be mirrored ( Last time I did that win Acronis, mirroring the whole drive took less than a half hour, if I recall ), then it could be plugged into the new PC's USB 3 port and data could be transferred.

The only potential kink that I'm wondering about, is that the old PC has Windows 10 and the new PC has Windows 8.1. If I mirror the old drive onto a drive in a newer ST0005U-D, and then move the station to the new PC and plug it into the USB 3 port, will the data still be readable and transferrable to the new PC?

Yes, your data files will be available from the docked drive.

Also, why not upgrade the new Windows 8.1 computer to Windows 10?

NavyLCDR said:

Yes, your data files will be available from the docked drive.

Also, why not upgrade the new Windows 8.1 computer to Windows 10?

Because I just went through PC hell since last July with the older PC. I'm going to have to move data from it and throw it in the trash now. I'm not sure if it's the BIOS, the chipset ( which I tried upgrading but it FAILED ) or/and the video card, or all the above, but upgrading to 10 from Win 7 was NOT a good idea on that Asus Essentio with Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 CPU. ( won't go into the long story, but I just need it to be over already. I may have spent 100 hours on trying to save it. )

So I'm interested in sticking to 8.1 for a few years. Plus, I don't think the new PC came with an upgrade offer. It's a refurbed Asus with an AMD FX-8310.

The free upgrade still works, but if you don't want to chance it, at least the nagging from Microsoft to upgrade to Windows 10 has stopped.

Upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 cannot physically destroy or damage a computer, but the OS might not run if it isn't compatible with the older hardware.

NavyLCDR said:

The free upgrade still works, but if you don't want to chance it, at least the nagging from Microsoft to upgrade to Windows 10 has stopped.

Upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 cannot physically destroy or damage a computer, but the OS might not run if it isn't compatible with the older hardware.

Understood. And if you're a Navy Lt Commander, thank you for your service.

MamaBear said:

Understood. And if you're a Navy Lt Commander, thank you for your service.

Thank you! Retiring this year at 33+ years.