Large file transfer image or direct copy?

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mr_zen256

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I recently purchased a 450 gb raptor drive to put all my programs and games onto. The old HDD was a 500gb drive.

Is it safe to do a direct copy of files and directories without running the risk of data corruption? Or am I better to use disk image software?
 
A copy should work, if it's not the OS drive. [clarification: as long as you don't plan to preserve the bootable property of an OS drive, a copy should work].
 
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I would suggest using TeraCopy, it's free, and if you enable it, the app can do checksum verification of the copied files to ensure it's an error-free transfer.

One tip: don't drag and drop ALL of it at one time - do the copying operation in parts, meaning a batch of files, like a single directory at a time if possible. TeraCopy technically can batch/queue up everything in one big operation but, in my experience, it's still better to do it in small efforts until it's all done overall.

Sidenote: I had no idea they'd released a 450GB version of the VelociRaptor, kinda interesting they did that. Newegg shows it for ~$200 which is somewhat steep; could get a 64GB SSD and a 2TB drive for that much but, I suppose it's something. ;)
 
Boot up in Linux and use rsync or cp. Windows has a bad habbit of erroring out and halting the entire process then you have fun trying to figure out where you left off. You can also use the windows xcopy command (ensure to read all the flags so you include hidden and system files, subdirectories etc) but personally I prefer just using rsync. If by chance there is an actual file transfer issue such as network outage if copying over the network, at least you can just rerun and it will continue where it left off, more or less.
 
Thanks for the replies :)

Yeah it's not a bootable or OS drive. It's basically just a sep HDD for apps and games. I ended up doing a direct copy regardless of my concerns (impulsive nature I guess). Everything seems to be working ok..

Thanks for the advice. I will probably look into that TeraCopy software next time I need to do a large transfer. The checksum verification would be handy.

RE: 450gb Raptor. Yeah I was surprised too! I got a fairly good deal on it. I would have got SSD but they still dont have good $$ per GB yet and I dont want to clutter my PC with a RAID config so the Raptor seemed like a good compromise :)
 
If you are looking for a simpler solution just do a regular copy-paste in your OS then check using a file has utility. HashTab is a pretty good one
 
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