I want to move around 50Gb maybe more of data from 1 PC to another. Can I just plug a cat 5 cable into connect the PC's together and transfer data that way?
hmmmmm unless some networking miracle happened that I missed in the last few years the answer to your question is no.
To network 2 PCs you can use what is called a crossover cable between them and then set up a network using a network sharing wizard. I supose this could be described as a bit of cat 5 cable but they are not actually that easy to come by.
Your best bet is to actually take the hard drive out of one and put it in the other and disc to disc transfer it will be much much faster.
Or Pop into your local M***** - The Electronics Specialist, and pick up a crossover cable for about a fiver. (Sorry got told off last time I actually mentioned their name.)
to network the pc's you have 2 options as said above:
1) if you have a router then network them, very easy make sure both computers are on the same workgroup and share the folder you want and setup the network.
2) you have no router and want to link a network cable directly from 1 pc to another you need a crossover cable.
You don't need crossover cables anymore. If one of the PCs is 2-3 years old and has gigabit lan port it will autosense it, any 5e cat cable will work. Normal 100Mbit ethernet ports may need crossover cables but you can also buy a little device that switchs the cable from X-over or pass-through.
I just transferred 150GB using this method. I just bought a gigabit PCI card for the old PC for around £5.
You don't need gigabit on both machines. The machine with gigabit will configure itself to match what's at the other end of the cable.
If you haven't got any network cables at the moment you may as well get a crossover cable as they'll be less to go wrong. If you've already got a standard cable then just give it a try as the worst that can happen is it not working.
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