Best way to copy from one external hard drive to another?

[clunkmess]

Hello,

I have been trying to copy one folder from external hard drive (NTFS using Paragon) to my new Mac formatted external hard drive without success.

The folder is about 1.28TB with close to 4,000 videos. Sooner or later, the whole copy operation stops because of the error "this file is in use". I've tried turning off icon preview and still get the error.

I'm at the mercy of the Mac community! Please help me.

 

[darkside85]

Well its just telling you that one of the file is in used. You might have to restart the pc and do the copy process back again.

 

[MacUser2525]

Open Terminal in the Applications -> Utilities folder type in rsync -avP then a space drag the ntfs drive icon to Terminal so it will autocomplete the path for you then add a /* to the end of the completed path with no space there then a space and drag the mac formatted to it next add a / to the end of the completed path with no space there hit the enter key and let it do its thing. You will see lots of text scrolling by telling you what files/folders it is copying if it errors hit the up arrow key to get the line back hit enter again to resume where it left off, repeat again if it was even necessary for the first time repeat.

 

[clunkmess]

Open Terminal in the Applications -> Utilities folder type in rsync -avP then a space drag the ntfs drive icon to Terminal so it will autocomplete the path for you then add a /* to the end of the completed path with no space there then a space and drag the mac formatted to it next add a / to the end of the completed path with no space there hit the enter key and let it do its thing. You will see lots of text scrolling by telling you what files/folders it is copying if it errors hit the up arrow key to get the line back hit enter again to resume where it left off, repeat again if it was even necessary for the first time repeat.

It's doing its thing! I LOVE YOU!

 

[MacUser2525]

Good to hear/see just let it go until it completes or if taking too long and wanting to continue at another time hit the CTRL + C keys at the same time to cancel the operation since I included the capital P in the command it will just resume where it left off copying/syncing the drives.

Edit: Should be clearer it will resume at the exact point it left off all other data already copied will still be there not needing to be copied again from the start, it will still check to be sure though so you would see some of that scrolling by.