Fastest way to transfer data between 2 computers

[avianrand]

Just finishing up a new windows 7 computer. I want to transfer about 350GB from my XP machine to my 7 machine. They're networked through my Linksys router. I can transfer files that way. It's slow. I can also use my external eSATA drive and copy from the XP machine to that and then from that to my 7 machine. That's actually a bit faster than over the network even considering it's a 2 step process. But I was wondering if there's a faster way? I'm sure that I can't connect one eSATA port to another, right? I'm not going to try cuz I don't want to hurt anything but I figured I'd ask. The other thing that I thought might be faster is crossover cable from one computer to the other bypassing the router. I used to have a peer to peer set up that way. I don't want to buy anything fancy to do this. I remember laplink was the way to go a long time ago but I'm sure that's passe. I probably still have a yellow parallel cable somewhere. Anyway, just figured I'd see what anyone thought.

Thanks much,

A.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

How are you transferring the files over the network? Wired PC to wired PC or is one of them wireless?

If you run a crossover cable between the two that might be faster if both NIC's are 1000base-T.

Good luck.

 

[avianrand]

Sorry, forgot to say no wireless. Hard wired. Both motherboards have gigabit LAN ports. So if I get a gigabit crossover cable I may be able to beat the speed of the SATA transfer to the external drive and back. Will give that a shot. Thanks.