Need to copy 325 GB over ethernet from Win 7 to Win 10 - fastest way?

Title says it all. I have an old Windows 7 laptop with 325 GB of data I want to copy to a newer Windows 10 Home laptop. Both have Gigabyte ethernet (I have an ethernet crossover cable). I've used FTP but only for smaller transfers/individual files. FTP doesn't preserve the file attributes which is something I'd like to keep.

I plan on setting the Windows 7 PC as a file share then accessing that share from the Windows 10 PC. I've used Teracopy in the past but it has proven unreliable (freezing and such). I've been reading about Robocopy and am intrigued by its multi-threaded ability for copying files. Will Robocopy maintain the source files attributes? Is Robocopy the fastest or is there something faster?

Edit-

P.S. does Robocopy display throughput info (MB/s transfer speed)?

Thanks - I am a power user so command line is what I plan to use. I still would like to know if Robocopy is indeed the fastest way or is there something faster? Are my file/folder attributes preserved? Does Robocopy display transfer speed?

P.S. does Robocopy display throughput info (MB/s transfer speed)?

it can report the average speed at the end, but not during as far as I know.

If there is a way, I haven't come across it.

Just a snippet from Robocopy /?

/COPY:copyflag[s] :: what to COPY for files (default is /COPY: DAT).
(copyflags : D=Data, A=Attributes, T=Timestamps, X=Skip alt data streams).
(S=Security=NTFS ACLs, O=Owner info, U=aUditing info).


/SEC :: copy files with SECurity (equivalent to /COPY: DATS).
/COPYALL :: COPY ALL file info (equivalent to /COPY: DATSOU).
/NOCOPY :: COPY NO file info (useful with /PURGE).
/SECFIX :: FIX file SECurity on all files, even skipped files.
/TIMFIX :: FIX file TIMes on all files, even skipped files.

As for transfer speed. This is what is displayed once the copy is completed.

Total Copied Skipped Mismatch FAILED Extras
Dirs : 96 0 96 0 0 0
Files : 319 2 317 0 0 0
Bytes : 90.57 m 117.4 k 90.46 m 0 0 0
Times : 0:00:04 0:00:00 0:00:00 0:00:04


Speed : 421912 Bytes/sec.
Speed : 24.142 MegaBytes/min.
Ended : Monday, February 20, 2023 21:55:39

What intrigues me more is why regular Windows GUI copy performance is abysmal compared to Robocopy. Why no multi threading here?

Well I decided to run some benchmarks to see what speeds I would get. The results were disappointing. I connected 2 Windows 7 x64 laptops (the Windows 10 laptop is due to arrive tomorrow) via my crossover cable. I confirmed that they were both connected, discoverable and the speed 1 Gbps. The results were disappointing. I tested one 403 MB file and it took several minutes - the Windows 7 version of Robocopy doesn't give average transfer speed unlike the Windows 10 version. I tried various combinations of the command and retried several times, speed was abysmal.

I then tried the same file using SpeedCommander, a dual pane file explorer replacement I use and it took about 6 seconds with an average speed of 95 MB/s (760Mb/s) which is about the upper threshold for GigE without fiddling with MTU settings.

At least I know my crossover cable works. I guess I'll wait till my new laptop arrives and benchmark the Windows 10 version of Robocopy to see if I get better results. I may even give Teracopy a second look but either way it looks like it will take several hours to transfer that 325 GB. I probably won't do it all at once, spanning across several days instead.

Can't - the external USB I use is 75% full and I need the space because I plan to make an image of the new laptop before I even boot into the OS. After I'm done configuring/installing all my software I will make another image so the only option is laptop to laptop.

You'd have to experiment with the number of threads. But IIRC the old (and discontinued in 2010) RichCopy 4 by Ken Tamaru is still a good bit faster than Robocopy if the goal is to copy files over a LAN, and, Robocopy has always been overrated IMO.

ClippyBeer said:

Can't - the external USB I use is 75% full and I need the space because I plan to make an image of the new laptop before I even boot into the OS. After I'm done configuring/installing all my software I will make another image so the only option is laptop to laptop.

Can't you just go out and buy another HDD or SSD with USB3? A computer without storage space is like a pub without beer.

hdmi said:

You'd have to experiment with the number of threads. But IIRC the old (and discontinued in 2010) RichCopy 4 by Ken Tamaru is still a good bit faster than Robocopy if the goal is to copy files over a LAN, and, Robocopy has always been overrated IMO.

Can't you just go out and buy another HDD or SSD with USB3? A computer without storage space is like a pub without beer.

I will be purchasing another USB HDD but I won't be using to shuttle data, only for backups/imaging. Copying 325 GB to the external USB then copying back to the new PC takes twice as long as transferring over GigE.

I clocked my transfer speed at about 95 MB/s which comes out to roughly 330 GB/hr so I will be sticking with my crossover cable versus another method. I will mark this thread as solved. Ethernet crossover cable is the new Laplink.