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How to transfer files from my PC?

T

TaylorDog

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 15, 2007
26
0
I'm about to finally switch over to Mac, and was wondering what the best way to transfer some of my files over will be? Can I just grab them over my wireless network? There must be a better way than burning them onto CDs, which will take forever! I can't wait for the Mac though...

Also, is there some guide I should read to make the transition easier (I've been a PC user for 15 years). I'm pretty tech savvy and was thinking spending some time with it, along w/ online resources, should get me going pretty well.
 
How many and what type of files are we talking about here?

Word Docs? Pictures? Music?

You can transfer over a network, wired or wireless without too much hassle. But if you've got an external hard drive thats a little bit easier.
 
Around 100 Word docs, then maybe 15 gigs worth of music, movies and pics.
 
TaylorDog said:
Around 100 Word docs, then maybe 15 gigs worth of music, movies and pics.
Click to expand...

Wireless will definitely work fine, but at 802.11g speeds, it will take a significant amount of time (probably 5-8 hours) to transfer 15 gigs of information. If you plug in via wire to the ethernet router, it'll be faster. Otherwise you could certainly do this overnight wirelessly.

In terms of speed from faster to slower:
- Use a firewire cable to do the transfer (probably 10-15 minutes)
- Use an ethernet cable to do the transfer (probably also under 30 min)
- Use a memory stick (if you have one that's in the 4-8 gigs range, probably around 1 hour or less)
- Use a wireless network to do the transfer (around 5-8 hours)
- Use CDs or DVDs (god knows)

I personally would not go for the last option. The media themselves, unless it's all rewritable, will cost you more than the memory stick or one of the cables.
 
Sending via wireless will be slower than using an ethernet cord. And I highly doubt his laptop has a firewire cord. Take an ethernet cord, plug one end into the back of the laptop, the other into your mac, enable file sharing on your laptop and just find the files on your mac. Best way to do it, IMO.
 
Will a "regular" ethernet cable work though, directly connected from my old laptop to the Mac? I forget the proper name, but I know some of the ethernet cables have the wires switched around for direct connecting. Thanks for all the info!
 
bld44 said:
Sending via wireless will be slower than using an ethernet cord. And I highly doubt his laptop has a firewire cord. Take an ethernet cord, plug one end into the back of the laptop, the other into your mac, enable file sharing on your laptop and just find the files on your mac. Best way to do it, IMO.
Click to expand...

You need a crossover cable to do this, as opposed to a patch cable.

I recommend just hooking both machines to your router with normal ethernet cables, share files on your PC, and grab them from your mac.
 
Crossover, that's it! I think I'll do exactly what you all have suggested and just plug both computers into the router. Now I need to decided which MacBook to order... I'm going to pull the trigger from Amazon tonight and can't decide if I should get the older model (2 ghz white) for 1075 after rebate or the newer one (2.16 ghz white) for 1200 after rebate. I'm not sure if it's worth $125 for 166 mhz and 40 gb hd space.
 
This might be a wonderful time to backup your data to DVD/CD, or to an external Hard Drive.

You kill two birds with one stone, copy your data for easy transfer and back it up at the same time.

If you go the USB Thumb Drive route, be sure to get a fast one. I use both and the transfer speeds are much different between the normal USB2 and a fast USB2 Thumb Drive. In my case almost 50% faster.
 
I would back it up all your files onto an external hard drive like the LaCie d2 Hard Drive Extreme with Triple Interface, with USB 2 for connection to the PC to upload your files onto.

Then disconnect the drive from the PC and connect to the Mac using 1394B (firewire b)connection. You then have all your files already backed up.

You would then just copy your files onto your Mac.

The drive would have to be formatted using fat 32, which you can do that from within the disk utility on your Mac.
 
mkrishnan said:
I've seen a wireless network sustain five mega*bits* per second... I've never seen 802.11g sustain 5 megabytes / second.... I realize that's within theoretical spec... I've just never had experience of transfers that fast, especially sustained over 15 gigs.
Click to expand...
I've had my Airport Express sustain around 5 MB/s when I'm the only client.
 
odinsride said:
You need a crossover cable to do this, as opposed to a patch cable.

I recommend just hooking both machines to your router with normal ethernet cables, share files on your PC, and grab them from your mac.
Click to expand...

Any standard ethernet cord will work provided both computers have an ethernet port. No router necessary.
 
odinsride said:
You need a crossover cable to do this, as opposed to a patch cable.

I recommend just hooking both machines to your router with normal ethernet cables, share files on your PC, and grab them from your mac.
Click to expand...

All modern macs don't need crossover cables those are thing of the past. The mac ethernet ports are auto sensing. Most PCs are too these days.
 
trainguy77 said:
All modern macs don't need crossover cables those are thing of the past. The mac ethernet ports are auto sensing. Most PCs are too these days.
Click to expand...

Ah, well i guess my age is showing then...it's been a while since I've worried with networking stuff :p
 
Can you consolidate all of your data onto one of the PC's hard drives, then put that hard drive in your mac, transfer files over to the mac formatted HD drive via SATA, then reformat the PC-derived HD?
 
It wouldn't be so slow transferring over the network if Windows wasn't ass-slow at networking.

Wireless should be fine -- I don't think it would take five hours either way, but ethernet is probably your best bet unless you have a decent-sized thumbdrive.
 
I've got a few questions:

I just bought my macbook.
1.) I'm going to connect the two computers together via an ethernet cable. Once I connect them, then what do I do? lol. Step by step please, I've never created a network before.
2.) I know my macbook doesn't require a crossover cable, but can I still use one? Right now it's more convenient for me to use a crossover cable than a regular cable, so I'm wondering if it will still work.

Thanks a lot!
 
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