Is there a way to move large files (minimum 6GB) between a Mac and a PC without an internet connection, external hard drive or flash/jump drive? Is there some type of cord that I can use?
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Moving Large Files Between Mac & PC
- Thread starter nanogirl21
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Basically, I will be transferring these files at school. The location of the lab that I will be in does not have internet service. Since most of the work is group/class based I just can’t get up and go to another place on campus that has internet. I would need to transfer large videos & production files back and forth between OS and Windows XP a few times during the lab. I have tried flash drives and WD external hard dives but my experience with them is not the best. (1) it takes forever (2) I constantly have to wipe and reformat the drive to add anything new to it. I am sure this have to do with the OS to Windows XP back to OS move that it is doing. If I delete/move something off of the drive the computer (on the OS or Windows side) wont recognize the newly freed space. It sucks because if I want to just delete/replace 1 file I cannot. I would have to replace all the files. That makes the entire process even longer. I am pretty sure this isn’t the type of drive, because I have tried different brands & sizes. I’ve had several people take a look at it and they can’t figure it out either. I’m just really tired of messing with drives. I find myself spending most of my time getting angry/pissed off than accomplishing my work. I really would just like to not use them. It would be great if I could just plug a cord in, launch the OS app and Windows program, drag and drop the files, and be done.
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Just because I feel like someone is going to ask. No, I cannot just do all the work on just one operating system. Myself and a few other people in the group does not have Windows, but we need to be able to pass/share documents back and for with those who do during lab.
Oh man that sucks! It seems like it would be something that can do this. USB (on the PC side) to HDMI (on the Mac side) or something. It's so frustrating.
HDMI is a video/audio standard, so I doubt it will help with USB.
When you say it takes forever, it really depends on the computer and your drive. If you don't have USB 3, then it will be slow for a 6 GB file.
When you delete something on the drive, do you also empty the recycle bin/trash? Because unless you set it to instantly delete it will pretend to delete the file but the space is still in use.
You could format the drive to ExFAT so that both sides can read/write but it still sounds like you are not fully deleting the file off the drive.
Two Macs can network at 10 Gbps over a direct thunderbolt link and the connection is relatively simple. Otherwise you (usually) need a crossover Ethernet cable and can network at 1 Gbps if the ports support it. This is the easiest way with just a cord, but it might be hard to set up a Windows to OSX connection.
When you say it takes forever, it really depends on the computer and your drive. If you don't have USB 3, then it will be slow for a 6 GB file.
When you delete something on the drive, do you also empty the recycle bin/trash? Because unless you set it to instantly delete it will pretend to delete the file but the space is still in use.
You could format the drive to ExFAT so that both sides can read/write but it still sounds like you are not fully deleting the file off the drive.
Two Macs can network at 10 Gbps over a direct thunderbolt link and the connection is relatively simple. Otherwise you (usually) need a crossover Ethernet cable and can network at 1 Gbps if the ports support it. This is the easiest way with just a cord, but it might be hard to set up a Windows to OSX connection.
When you say no internet connection, does this mean no ethernet interfaces on either computer? If both computers have regular ethernet, all you need to do is buy or make an ethernet crossover cable and connect them directly via ethernet, configure the IP addresses to some RFC1918 space and directly connect to one another over TCP/IP.
I will double check Monday about the deleting method.
My Macbook does not have an ethernet spot. However, I know there is a thunderbolt (or USB) to ethernet adapter that Apple makes. The PC does have an ethernet spot. Can you give me more info about how I would set this up? Is there a program? Thank you.
If you buy the official thunderbolt adapter you just plug it in and you will have a ethernet port. If you use it under BootCamp it needs to be plugged in before Windows boots because of the way they made the Windows driver.
If you get the official USB one from Apple then it should also just work. I only have the thunderbolt adapter so I can't say much about the USB version, but in general Apple devices work with each other. If you use a third party adapter you might need drivers for your Mac.
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18710?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US
This gives a general outline of how to connect.