The Tornado - file transfer data cable

[Ablang]

Thanks Robert. I couldn't find the original article but there is
some mention of something at the website http://www.maximumpc.com/article/watchdog_january_2008

I will further investigate this before buying.

"Tornado Gets Sucked In By Windows Vista

The Tornado whips through large file transfers - unless you're using
Vista
After reading Maximum PC’s review of the Data Drive Thru Tornado in
the November issue, I purchased one; I routinely connect my laptop to
another PC. The Tornado seemed like a good solution that didn’t
require mucking about with mapped drives and flaky network adapters.

For the most part, the Tornado worked as advertised. However, I
encountered problems when transferring a 24GB file between my laptop
and a desktop computer (a Vista NTFS partition to an XP NTFS
partition). Even though the laptop continued to show progress, the
file on the desktop did not grow past about 4GB. When the transfer
ended, I was left with 24GB on the laptop and a 4GB file on the
desktop.


I attempted to contact the company using the technical support email
links on its website, but the links did not work. I also tried
emailing the parent company but received no response. Can you help?


—Chris

The Dog contacted Data Drive Thru about Chris’s issue and a spokesman
told the Dog that the company has no record of him calling or emailing
the company. However, the spokesman agreed to make it right and
contact Chris directly. For his part, the Dog tested the original
Tornado that Maximum PC received and successfully copied a 10GB image
from a Windows XP Pro machine to another Windows XP Pro machine. The
original review was based on data transfers between Windows XP
machines, as well. Both used NTFS, and the transfer was very fast.

The Dog did, however, have odd results when copying files between a
Windows XP Pro rig and a Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit machine.
Similarly to Chris, a 48GB image file was truncated to 4GB, but a 10GB
file made it through fine. The Dog spoke with a Data Drive Thru
representative who said tests in its labs have been unable to
reproduce such problems—large files have been repeatedly transferred
using the device without a hitch. In fact, the company said only two
people have complained about any problem with the device: Chris and
now the Dog. Although there was no solution at press time, Data Drive
Thru was closely working with the Dog and Chris to find an answer. For
a solution—hopefully—watch this space. Woof.
"

 

[Calab]

For the most part, the Tornado worked as advertised. However, I

encountered problems when transferring a 24GB file between my laptop
and a desktop computer (a Vista NTFS partition to an XP NTFS
partition). Even though the laptop continued to show progress, the
file on the desktop did not grow past about 4GB. When the transfer
ended, I was left with 24GB on the laptop and a 4GB file on the
desktop.

I had similar issues moving files between a Linux PC and Windows PC. It
looks like an SMB issue.

What I found was that larger files could be copied closer to the root
directory on the Windows PC. For example:

- a 5gig file could be copied to C:\filename
- the same 5gig file would fail when copied to
C:\Archive\Video\Movies\Comedy\filename

Also, during a large file MOVE, I would eventually recieve a "network not
available" error message. After this error message I'd check the target file
size and it would still be growing.

Never could figure out the issue.