Silly question?

julianhj · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:11

Can I plug my desktop and laptop together via their respective ethernet ports to transfer files, or does it simply not work like that?

I have around 95GB of files on my laptop that I want to back up to my desktop. I do have an external HDD, so could back up and transfer via that route, but it's a fairly lengthy process.

rainbow6six · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:13

Yes, it is a silly question

julianhj · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:15

Cheers, in order to balance my silliness out, and therefore put the world back on an even keel, could you provide a sensible answer?

TIA

AbsenceJam · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:25

Are they both Gigabit? If not then use the external HDD as it'll be faster.

Duke · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:31

Get a 2.5" IDE cable converter (only a couple of quid) and slave the laptop HD into the desktop. Or if SATA then just plug it in direct.

rainbow6six · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:47

However, if you have a network cable handy (preferably cross-over) then yes, you can plug the 2 PC's together and transfer the files that way. You will need to input a private static IP address on each evice too........

Cheaper then an external HDD or specific cables

paradigm · 5 Oct 2009 at 15:17

rainbow6six said:
However, if you have a network cable handy (preferably cross-over) then yes, you can plug the 2 PC's together and transfer the files that way. You will need to input a private static IP address on each evice too........

Cheaper then an external HDD or specific cables

These days, most devices are auto MDI/MDI-X, so a crossover cable won't be needed nor preferable. He'll also need to input a subnet mask too.

He will most likely need to set up a share with "everyone" permissions to read-write on the target machine too.

julianhj · 5 Oct 2009 at 18:29

Blimey, all sounds a bit too technical for my current abilities, I'll use the external HDD instead, thanks though! I've never been good with network stuff, and my planned foray into NAS using FreeNAS is going to be interesting!

Energize · 5 Oct 2009 at 19:56

julianhj said:
Can I plug my desktop and laptop together via their respective ethernet ports to transfer files, or does it simply not work like that?

I have around 95GB of files on my laptop that I want to back up to my desktop. I do have an external HDD, so could back up and transfer via that route, but it's a fairly lengthy process.

Why not just connect them both to your router and use the windows network setup wizard?

Dark_Angel · 5 Oct 2009 at 22:05

Energize said:
Why not just connect them both to your router and use the windows network setup wizard?

Easy way...

I pretty much done that with my PC and server, then just mapped the drives.

Pretty simple, and works well.