Fastest Way to Transfer Data between 2 comps?
 

Currently I have a network setup between my two computers that are right next to eachother, but whenever I want to back up my stuff, sometimes which is 1-2 GB, it takes like 3 hours. Is there a quicker way to do this than to just have it go thru the network?

Physically move one harddisk to the other computer, connect it, copy files, and put it back again.

That would be faster, theoretically about 4 or 5 times as fast. :)

Alternatively, you could try two gigabit lan cards instead of normal 10/100 cards, that would also give you similar speeds.

Thanks, but to clarify I really wanna move the data between two HDs, since it is backup.

Running it through the network is gonna be probably the fastest way to send the data if you're moving it between two seperate computers.

The other option is burning it to CDs or moving the harddrive to the other computer, but that's not the best for automated backups.

3 hours sounds like a really long time for 1-2GB of data. Assuming 2GB of data
10Mbit: 49 minutes at 700KB/sec
100Mbit: 4.9 minutes at 7MB/sec
1Gbit: 30 seconds at 70MB/sec

And that's assuming that the network doesn't run at full - I've transfered data across 10MBit at 1000KB before.

One thing to check is that the link is in full duplex (assuming you've got a crossover cable or are running through a switch), or else that it's in half duplex (using a hub). That will mess up your speeds if the link type is configured wrong.

1-2 GB shouldn't take anywhere near 3 hours. Like Pragma said, you may want to check the configuration of your network. Even though I doubt there's anything that is seriously wrong. Interesting.

I dunno if it will help, but perhaps you should do a speed test of your harddisks - if one or the other can't cope with the 100 Mbits a second, that might be your culprit.

...but it'd need to be quite an olde disk to have such problems