What Is The Fastest Way To Transfer Data From Old To New System ?

Hi,
I am getting a new Workstation i-7 12700 CPU & I have lots of data in my old system on many Sata 3, 3.5 inch 3TB HDDs & 3.5 inch 500GB HDDs.

I am not sure if I can just put these HDDs in one of the slots in New workstation & copy - Paste the data or not because of newer & different controllers in new system.

Good news is that there are plenty of latest ports like DP, USB 3.2 Gen2 & USB 3.2 Type C Gen2 on the new system but it has three 512GB NVMe and Three 4TB Sata 3 5400rpm drives. And I need to transfer data from old HDDs to these new drives.

So can you guys suggest the type of adapter cable that I can use to connect to one of these ports & old Sata 3 HDDs that would allow me to transfer data much faster by copy paste ? I am confused with all kinds of such adapters available in the market so I need your expertise.

Many Thanks

 

No matter what method you use, if you want to "transfer" files from one drive to another, you will be using copy and paste. So there really is no fast way to do this.

If me and we were just talking a single drive, I would simply physically install that old drive into the new computer and use it as a secondary drive. No transfer of data required. When I needed it, I would just go to that drive.

But since you said there are "many" old drives, if me, I would use a drive docking station. I have that one and it works great.

 

That was my first thought & I have mentioned that in my question.
But the problem is that even in my current workstation I am not able to plug 500GB in 3TB SATA slot or vice versa so I am not sure that it would work in new system & hence my question & prepare for plan B before my new system arrives.

So I like your 2nd suggestion, Would I be able to put in any 3.5" HDD ( 500GB OR 3TB & either read or write the data any time I need it ?

Thank You

 

Sorry but that does not make sense. The size (as in data storage capacity) does not matter. What matters is the interface (IDE vs SATA) and the physical size of the drive 5.25 vs 3.5 vs 2.5 inch.

That's how I use mine. And what is nice is the drives are "hot-swappable". That is, I can slip in Drive A, read and write as I please, then remove Drive A and insert Drive B without rebooting the computer.

But again, if you have both SATA and IDE (PATA, EIDE) you need a docking station that supports both.

 

Digerati's suggestion of a docking station is the best option and not all that expensive.

But another suggestion is to get a USB external hard drive case (cheap on ebay) to fit the physical size of an old drive and its connector. Install old hard drive in case, then USB plug it into your new comp for copying etc.

If other old hard drives are compatible, you can then take the first old drive out of the case (once you've finished copying) and put another in etc. Rinse and repeat.... But you will need a couple of different cases if you have different drive types.

OR buy cases for each old drive and leave the drives permanently installed and available to be plugged-in to source the files or reformat for reuse for portable storage, backups etc. But remember that if they are very old hard drives, they don't last forever.

 

Also use robocopy - not Windows copy and paste.
Example:
open a commend window and robocopy source destination /s /r:1 /w:1 /XD $RECYCLE.BIN "System Volume Information"
This will copy from the source with subdirectories to the destination, retry on errors 1 time & exclude recycle bin and sys vol - those files are usually locked by Windows and you don't need them usually.