I have a Window Server 2000 machine running MS SQL Server that stores over 20GB of data. The database is backed-up every day to the second harddrive. I want to transfer those backup files to another computer to build another test server and for recovery practicing. (the backup never actually got restored for almost 5 years. Don't tell my boss about that!)
I have trouble transfering that huge file through the network. I've tried plain network copy, apache download, and ftp. Any method I tried end up failing when the amount of data transfered reach 2GB. The last time that I successfully transfered the file, it was through a usb attached external harddrive. But I want to perform this task routinely and preferably automatically.
Wonder what is the most pragmatic approach for this situation ?
Best Answer
A failure predictable at 2Gb sounds like the target filesystem is to blame... Are both on NTFS? Are you piping through any compression (zip used to fail at 2gb boundaries) ((is apache doing compression))
I have copied many files over 20Gb using robocopy (as others have mentioned) but I'd avoid using the /MIR switch until you are sure you have got the copy doing what you want - since it will delete files as well as copy them.
SMB suffers from a one packet at a time limit so is often the slower way to copy files - you have the option to copy using push or pull. Personally, I prefer the push method (copy is initiated by the source).