Question Best way to access/transfer files from old HDDs to my PC?

[Stg-Flame]

I've looked around and found quite a few adapters but I'm curious what would be the best way to transfer terabytes worth of files from older HDDs to my new system. I recently did some spring cleaning and realized I have a ridiculous amount of older HDDs lying in boxes and I'd like to finally get rid of them.

 

[In2Photos]

I would get one of the docking station style adapters (SATA to USB). And probably one that holds multiple HDD, like this one. They have a 2 or 4 drive version. SABRENT USB 3.0 to SATA I/II/III Dual Bay External Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD with Hard Drive Duplicator/Cloner Function [20+TB Support] (EC-HD2B) https://a.co/d/jdF9KNU

way you can copy multiple drives at a time. I would also use a file copy software that verifies the data after the copy. It will take longer but at least you'll know it copied it correctly. I've used TeraCopy in the past and it worked well.

Whichever one you choose it needs to be externally powered for HDD so keep that it mind. The non powered adapters only work for SSD.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Thanks, I'll look into that.

 

[mikeymikec]

If you think you'll be copying *lots* of tiny files (e.g. Word documents with no graphics), then connecting the drives (if possible) internally via SATA will get the best performance, unless you'll sacrifice tonnes of time by opening up your computer to connect each drive.

If you're expecting much larger files (photos, music, video), then a USB 3.0 enclosure will be the easiest in general to use and the latency penalty incurred by USB compared to SATA is unlikely to make much difference, plus the convenience of not having to open your computer. I suppose there's also a question of how many drives you'll want to connect up.

There's also a question of what technology drives you'll be connecting; USB 3.0 SATA enclosures are commonplace. I've got a ICY BOX brand docking bay that allows 2.5" IDE, 3.5" IDE or SATA drives to be connected. Such a docking bay would be much less of a pain than getting a say a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter.

In terms of software I normally use robocopy that comes with Windows. The syntax I typically use is:

robocopy source destination /MIR /R:0 /XJ

/MIR mirrors the file/folder structure of the source to the destination. /R:0 specifies the number of times robocopy should attempt to transfer a file if it throws an error the first time. /XJ excludes NTFS junctions (which are commonplace in =>Vista user profiles). Robocopy maintains file modify dates which can be useful.

 

[Stg-Flame]

It'll be a mixture of both tiny and large files as well as pictures and music. Living in a remote area, we had dial-up for many years that never pushed over 20 kb/s download, so there aren't that many large files on the oldest drives but I do have a lot of ISOs and music on some of the drives that I'd like to recover. I can just run it while I'm at work so I don't need them to be transferred instantaneously. I don't need to connect every drive at once and I'll likely only use this device this one time to rip the files I want and nuke the rest before I dispose of the drives.

 

[mikeymikec]

Ok. I just remembered, you'll need an admin command prompt to breeze past any filesystem permissions issues if the data is stored in user profiles.

 

[bba-tcg]

If you think you'll be copying *lots* of tiny files (e.g. Word documents with no graphics), then connecting the drives (if possible) internally via SATA will get the best performance, unless you'll sacrifice tonnes of time by opening up your computer to connect each drive.

If you're expecting much larger files (photos, music, video), then a USB 3.0 enclosure will be the easiest in general to use and the latency penalty incurred by USB compared to SATA is unlikely to make much difference, plus the convenience of not having to open your computer. I suppose there's also a question of how many drives you'll want to connect up.

There's also a question of what technology drives you'll be connecting; USB 3.0 SATA enclosures are commonplace. I've got a ICY BOX brand docking bay that allows 2.5" IDE, 3.5" IDE or SATA drives to be connected. Such a docking bay would be much less of a pain than getting a say a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter.

In terms of software I normally use robocopy that comes with Windows. The syntax I typically use is:

robocopy source destination /MIR /R:0 /XJ

/MIR mirrors the file/folder structure of the source to the destination. /R:0 specifies the number of times robocopy should attempt to transfer a file if it throws an error the first time. /XJ excludes NTFS junctions (which are commonplace in =>Vista user profiles). Robocopy maintains file modify dates which can be useful.

+1 for robocopy. It's a robust, little known command that just gets the job done. Very useful.