I’m currently creating my new NAS folders. I have my retired external WD drive plugged directly into the NAS using it’s USB ports. Currently I’m using the NAS File Transfer to move the files but only one folder at a time.
Question: Would I benefit from having 2 transfers running at the same time?
My gut tells me the slow point will be the WD drive since it can only read one ‘file’ at a time. So, regardless of how many transfers I have running the read time will be the limiting factor. I want to get this transfer done as quickly as possible, obviously, but not sure what method is faster.
Visually similar but not the same-as DOS. When you transfer the folders/files the NAS will re-index everything. Assuming all the folders you’ve created are exactly the same names as the ones you’re transferring, you’re probably ahead to just grab a bunch of them and let the NAS negotiate with the external drive how it’s going to accept and handle them.
A full transfer of any appreciable size (as in x-TB’s) will take a long time — think hours or even days. You should probably try chunks to get a feel for it, and BE CERTAIN neither device has some sort of “power-saving” feature enabled that slows or shuts down the CPU and/or disk(s) while you are in the middle of doing it all. Just turn those off for the time being. You need everything awake and running at top speed to make this happen as quickly as the devices are able.
There are other ways to do it, but what you’re doing will work just fine and probably with the least overhead for both devices. The more you can leave the NAS alone during the transfer period, the less time you will need to wait for completion.