I want to copy a big amount of data from a harddrive to a time capsule controlled drive.so I put the harddrive via USB to the capsule and connect to the capsule server with a Mac. But when I then move the data to a folder on the time capsule drive by drag&drop it seems to me that the copying goes over WIFI instead of the directest USB data connection way. This takes aeons! Isn't there a way to tell the capsule server to copy the data over their USB connection? thnx!
(I asked the same on stackoverflow, but maybe this is the right place for this kind of question?)
MacOS – How to copy data from harddrive to time capsule over USB connection via OSX terminal
copy/pastemacosterminaltime-capsule
Related Solutions
If you want an exact copy of the TC drive, the fastest way is to connect the USB drive directly to the TC and use the archiving option in Airport Utility:
Other things to consider:
- Transfering data over wire (ethernet) is faster than over Wi-Fi
- Connecting the USB drive directly to the computer (than to the TC) gives better results if you use the Finder to copy data.
I'd suggest using rsync from the terminal. It may still be slow, however:
- It should be faster than finder.
- You can stop the transfer any time. It will resume from where you left the next time you issue the same command.
So, it should both reduce required time and also make it possible to stop it and resume if you actually need to use your computer.
sudo rsync -avPh --delete-after /path/to/original/gromit.sparsebundle/ /path/to/copy/of/gromit.sparsebundle/
Explanation:
-a: Archive (be recursive, preserve timestamps ownership etc).-v: Verbose.-P: Show progress and real-time transfer rate.-h: Human readable output.--delete-after: At the end of copying remove any files at the destination that don't exist at the source. This gives you the freedom to continue making backups on your old time capsule without worrying about excessive files being copied to the new one.
Important: The trailing slashes in the two paths are important! If omitted a new dir may be created when you resume the sync (i.e. /path/to/copy/of/gromit.sparsebundle/gromit.sparsebundle).
Also note that the transfer rate displayed with the -P parameter is not accurate when small files (a few KB) are transfered.
Best Answer
Keep in mind that the data flow is "drive -> TC -> Mac -> TC", using the same USB wire both ways. If you want to speed it up, connect the harddrive directly to the Mac.