Laptop to desktop

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
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west Texas
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Dave Taylor
Is it possible to connect two computers and have the recipient act as an ehd for a large data dump?
The donor has a much smaller capacity than the recip.

Connect them with usb to usb then drag and drop files from one to the other?
 
I did something like that at home using basic Windows networking. My old desktop, although it can operate independently, acts primarily as a file server for my home network. I have limited files on my laptop and even those get backed up nightly to the desktop.

The desktop is wired to the network. The laptop is wireless.

It's worked very well for the past 5 years.
 
There is a USB cable solution, as described here: http://ccm.net/faq/342-how-to-connect-computers-via-usb .

As Catalo mentions, there’s also an ethernet cable solution: https://techwiser.com/how-to-connect-pc-to-pc-lan-cable/ .

The links are for reference, I recommend Googling past them if you need more and better info on your specific need.

For my stuff at home, I keep it simple, using a large flash drive or a WiFi connection with simple file sharing. Moving to cloud storage has been a huge improvement as well. Just depends on how much data you need to move and how much time you want to spend cabling/configuring vs. getting the data transferred.
 
It can be done. There are cables made for that purpose, such as this one.

I did it occasionally back in olden times when migrating users in standalone environments to new computers, but only if the old computer lacked both a NIC and a slot into which I could temporarily install one, and if the amount of data to be transferred was relatively small. Data transfer using USB 1.x was extremely slow; so if there was a lot of data to be moved and Ethernet wasn't an option, slaving the old computer's HD into the new computer made for a much faster migration (assuming that the new machine didn't have a warranty seal).

If the new machine did have a warranty seal but also had USB > 2.x, and if the old machine had USB 1.x, I'd use a PATA -> USB adapter (or an external HD enclosure if the client wanted the connection to be permanent) rather than a USB transfer cable.

I don't think I ever set up a USB transfer cable connection as permanent. It was strictly a migration solution for situations where it was the only option, which were rather unusual. I always recommended an external enclosure for anyone who wanted "permanent" access to the old drive.

Rich
 
Get a cheap Ethernet switch (~$20) and be done with it.

Also, since you appear to be on the internet look at the back of your access device. Chances are there are extra ports that you can use. Even the crappy AT&T Wifi router I have have has 4 100mbs Ethernet ports on it.

In the windows realm, got to the command prompt and type WHOAMI [ENTER]. That will tell you the machinename/user on each machine. Then you can map a drive from one to the other. Easy enough.

Cabling it might be faster, but doesn't matter.

So there's the short description of the process. @denverpilot can provide excessive detail. :)
 
Might it just be easier to get a SATA or IDE and power to USB adapter off amazon or bestbuy and just pop the HDD out of the laptop and plug it in?
 
You can use a normal Ethernet cable. Those folks that pointed you to crossover cables are operating on very outdated knowledge.

Any gigabit ethernet connection can be made with a patch cable (or even crossover cable) as there are no dedicated transmit and receive pairs. Data is sent in both directions across all four pairs.

Even 10/100 megabit ethernet connections can be made with either type of cable in the vast majority of devices you’d encounter as Auto MDI-X straightens that out.

The actual need for a crossover cable hasn’t been a thing for a very long time.
 
Mark is correct. But the wired method (if available) will likely be faster.

[edit - have higher data throughput... may not seem faster]
 
Before wild @$$ conjecturing, I'd like to know if speed is a concern, or whether you can simply let one run overnight into the other one. If so, a cheap external hard drive to dump donor onto and then plug into receptor and copy.
 
How much data would depend on what to recommend.
USB flash drive works wonders for up to about 128Gb. After that, go with external HD. They are good to have for backups anyway :)
 
3-400gb
I got out a network cable then thought, hmm this laptop would be best backed up to my (raided and regularly backed up) server.
Maybe I'll just plug into that.
 
If it's SATA, pull the HDD out of the laptop and install it into the desktop. 6gig SATA is better than 1gig Ethernet.
 
asicer said:
If it's SATA, pull the HDD out of the laptop and install it into the desktop. 6gig SATA is better than 1gig Ethernet.
Click to expand...
How fast do you think Dave's old hard drive is going to be? lol
 
Skyrys62 said:
How much data would depend on what to recommend.
USB flash drive works wonders for up to about 128Gb. After that, go with external HD. They are good to have for backups anyway :)
Click to expand...

Assuming USB 3. Otherwise... not so much.

Rich
 
Windows networking is the easy way to go. Put both PCs on a local network and then share a folder off the large one. On the small one, browse the network, find the folder and dump the contents in. Turn off file sharing when done.

If there is very, very much to find, then you can get giga-byte speeds from a USB3 to USB3 connection, but I've never used that myself and have no idea of any program that will do it. Maybe windows handles it natively?
 
bflynn said:
Windows networking is the easy way to go. Put both PCs on a local network and then share a folder off the large one. On the small one, browse the network, find the folder and dump the contents in. Turn off file sharing when done.

If there is very, very much to find, then you can get giga-byte speeds from a USB3 to USB3 connection, but I've never used that myself and have no idea of any program that will do it. Maybe windows handles it natively?
Click to expand...

It does, although imperfectly unless you assign a persistent drive letter to the USB device. Otherwise Windows assigns drive letters at each boot, so the drive may or may not have the same letter the next time the computer restarts. Even with a persistent drive letter, the drive needs to remain plugged into the same bus for it to be really persistent.

Most decent third-party software that need consistent access to a USB device can find it by the Instance Identifier, regardless of its current drive letter, again as long as it remains plugged into the same bus. Others plant a small, unique file on the drive's and/or partition's root and poll the connected devices for that file until they find the one they love. Clones created by Macrium, for example, aren't even assigned drive letters. But Macrium knows where to find them.

Rich
 
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