I used to be able to do my daily backups, on 15GB-capacity tape drives, over the SCSI channels I had available, by sending them over the Ethernet. Now that I use fewer machines, I have a TB USB2 drive and it takes more than a day, despite the fact that the volume is much lower and strictly local, as I move the USB2 drive from box to box. I watch the process progress and see that it often drops out for half a minute or longer despite the fact there's no other activity.

Simple file transfers take very little time at all, but the transfer of entire "folders" takes a long time, and, as I said, appears to have significant breaks. It's quicker, by about 40% under Win98SE than under XP, but perhaps that's because of the different drivers.

Perhaps the solution lies in taking the PC out of the loop. That's not going to happen right away, though.

RE