Is there a way to directly transfer files between laptops and PCs using regular USB cables?
Is there a way to directly transfer files between laptops and PCs using regular USB cables?
I've replaced my old laptop with a new one and I have over 350GB worth of data to move over, moving all of it to an external drive and then moving them to the new laptop doesn't seem efficient and it seems like it's gonna take forever
I know there are some special cables that can do that but I don't wanna waste money on something that I'm only gonna use once every 5 years at most.
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Could you possibly move it over a network? That might be faster in all honesty.
my home network is quite slow and the ethernet port on my old laptop is damaged, it only works sometimes so it'll definitely disconnect during the process.
You could try getting an external hard drive/SSD enclosure, putting the hard drive/ssd from your old laptop in it, and plugging it into your new computer to copy the files over. Twice as fast as copying to an external drive and then copying that to the new PC.
Buy a cheap USB to Ethernet adapter then and directly connect the two computers via Ethernet. USB to USB is possible but it's not worth the time and effort, network will be faster and easier. Or why not just buy a cheap external hard drive? According to Amazon a 500gb external hard drive can be had for $30 USD.
Without getting specialized equipment, you may not have much other option. Using WiFi on the laptop might still be faster than what you're doing now. It's worth trying with a subset of the data possibly to see which is faster.
Then use/get a usb data stick and transfer em that way or subsequently if it's the laptop you want to transfer off of, remove the HDD or SSD and get an adapter to plug the drive into usb.
Look for sata to usb adapters
USB drives are ridiculous these days. 512g for ~$40 USD. And USB 3 can fill it up in like a minute. Plus it’s always handy to have one. Best value option IMO.
By home network, do you mean your internet speed? Because if you do, FYI, your computers and electronics can almost certainly talk to each other over your local network much faster than that.
Do you have a router? I mean something resembling a LAN? If so the outbound network speeds wouldn't matter.
I do have a router, but I have to use wifi for the old laptop, does it affect the transfer speed?
If you already have a router no need to buy other cables/hardware. It's a piece of tech specifically design for networking. Just share the drive on the network and go at it. I think average wifi speed is like 1Gbps.
This is the answer.