Home Network Large File transfer question

[Guest]

Is there software that is more efficient at transfering or moving
large numbers of files or subdirectories around a home network that is
better than Windows Explorer?

Can the File and Settings Transfer Wizard software be used to do
this...I am wondering if the Windows Explorer method has any
limitations or if there is a way of speeding up these transfers on a
home network...kind of like using a localized FTP server-client...and
would that supply any size-speed advantages over windows explorer??

Henry

 

[Jetro]

The best way is to put a source hard disk into a destination computer.
TCP/IP network speed doesn't mainly depend on communication protocol either
HTTP, FTP, SMB, or whatever. NetBIOS over TCP/IP creates more overhead.
IIRC, NetBEUI network might be faster but it's error-prone and unreliable
communication.

 

[Bob Willard]

Is there software that is more efficient at transfering or moving
large numbers of files or subdirectories around a home network that is
better than Windows Explorer?

Can the File and Settings Transfer Wizard software be used to do
this...I am wondering if the Windows Explorer method has any
limitations or if there is a way of speeding up these transfers on a
home network...kind of like using a localized FTP server-client...and
would that supply any size-speed advantages over windows explorer??

Henry

First, note that you will get very different Sustained Transfer Rates
for a single large file than for a large bunch of small files, because
the per-file overhead is substantial.

On my home 100 Mb/s LAN (via a Linksys router), I get 9-10 MB/s using
Explorer to copy a large single file on a mapped network drive, with
XP on both source and target PCs; since 100 Mb/s means a peak rate of
12.5 MB/s, those STRs mean >70% efficiency.

OTOH, doing the same kind of file transfer between a XP PC and a W9x PC
produced STRs of 2-6 MB/s. It seems that a XP PC would rather talk to
another XP PC than to one of its older cousins.