Data transfer PC - Mac

Hi everyone, my first post here.
I am awaiting delivery of my brand new iMac and need to transfer my photographic images across to the hard drive. My image files are a mixture of RAW and JPEG's. I had been told (Canon EOS forums) that the easiest way of doing this was to purchase an external hard drive, copy the data files to this then connect up to the Mac and hey presto my images ready to go.
I purchased a Lacie d2 Quadra 500 gb drive, arrived today. I now find that this is formatted to Mac and to use it on the PC it needs formatting, this seems to me at lot less simple than I was first told.
Can any of the experts within these forums point me in the right directions as formatting the drive to PC would indicate that this then becomes a problem for the Mac.
My new Mac arrives in about 10 days time so I have time to try and resolve this, OR was the inforamtion that I was given DUFF, if so is there a solution that I can use?
Thanks in anticipation
Peter

A Windows drive can be formatted as NTFS or FAT32.
A Mac external drive can be formatted HFS+ or FAT32.
A Mac can read, but not write, from a NTFS drive.
Your best bet is to format the drive as FAT32. Then transfer the images to the Mac and reformat the external drive as HFS+ or HFS+ journalled.
FAT32 drives have a limitation that they will only support files of 4GB-1 or smaller. This may be OK for photos, but will quickly become a constraint if you store videos. Also, FAT32 tends to get fragmented.
To format your drive, you can use the DISK UTILITY program on the Mac. You can find it in the Applications Folder/Utilities.
Or you can format it on the Windows machine.
Remember that whenever you format, any data on that drive is erased.

Similar Messages

Data transfer from mac to pc using ipod

I need to transfer some data files from my MacBook to my PC using my 30GB ipod. I get all the files copied onto my ipod from my mac with no problems. I have my ipod set to be used in disk mode.
Once I plug it into my pc, it tells me that I need to format the drive. How can I successfully transfer data from my mac to my pc using my 30GB ipod?
Someone told me to go ahead and format the drive/ipod on my pc and then plug it into my mac, place the files in the ipod and then I should be able to access the files having the ipod plugged into my pc. I started to try this, but it messes up my ipod to where I need to reset my ipod to factory settings using, my macbook.
Would it be possible to reset my ipod to factory settings using itunes on my pc and then try plug the ipod into my macbook and copy the files over that way?
Please let me know what you have found out. I need to backup all my files and get them on to a second computer. I have 25GB worth of home videos that makes it so that I need to use my ipod, other wise another device would do the trick.

eternalfam wrote:
Would it be possible to reset my ipod to factory settings using itunes on my pc and then try plug the ipod into my macbook and copy the files over that way?
Yes. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what you were supposed to do in the first place. The wonderful thing about OS X: It'll speak HFS+, FAT32, and it'll even understand NTFS (but it can't write to it... yet). Oddest thing: XBox 360 will read HFS+, but WinXP/Vista won't... curious, isn't it?

Data transfer very slow on mac pro!! mac H/W unable to fit specifications.

Hi,
I am installinginternal disks on the quad mac pro and the transfer ratet in the mac are very slow!!!
the disks are: barracuda 7200.10 disks, 500 GB. Sta II 300, max ST3500630AS firmware 3.AAE . throughput:300mb.jumpred off to get the 300.
MAC tells that the QUAD MAC Pro equipment (2x2.66ghz dualcore intel xeon) comes with a 3.Gigabit specification/ 300MB/sec. (Intel ESB2 AHCI, speed: 3.0 Gigabit. AHCI version 1.10 supported)...
And the benchmarks of the disk ST3500630AS show maximum 80MB/sec and a minimin of 37.3MB/sec, average 63.1 MB/sec. (anandtech tests).
According to seagate.com the maximum sustained data transfer rate:78MB/s
but in the mac the reallity is different: I am getting a transfer rate of 22MB/sec!!!!! . with out any application running and only making copy of the files!!!!
that means that the mac is only providing only 1/3 of the expected transfer rate for the disks..
so, is there a way that the MAC Pro gets all the normal transfer rate for those disks???
Is the Quad MAC Pro hardware unable to get the maximum throughput of the disks???
It seems that the mac is unable to get also the average transfer rate of those disks.. how to correct it???
thanks a lot
Alberto
ps. just for fun: I am getting a faster transfer rate from an old power pc ,and old pc, and firewire 400 and old ide disks!!! (36MB/seg!!!)

Yup.
BThe latest Mac Pro are better, so if you have a new or 2 month old unit, Seagate should work, though I think there should be later firmware.
Some would say those drives take the cake or woRSe.
http://www.barefeats.com/hard91.html
SEAGATE PUZZLES
+Firmware version 3.AEE or later solves the slow sustained large block write speed issue for a single 7200.10 inside the Mac Pro.+
+The remaining performance issue is slow small random read speeds for one, two, three or four drives. No matter how many drives you configure in RAID 0 sets, the average random read speed for combined block sizes from 64K to 1024K is less than 30MB/s (based on QuickBench 3 testing).+
+Until Seagate fixes this, we can't recommend the 7200.10 series as the ideal boot drive for the Mac Pro (or Power Mac).+
http://www.barefeats.com/quad08.html

Using iPod for data transfer from windows to a Mac... is this possible?

ok here's the situation.
my room mate has a (video) iPod 30G colour screen and everything. she has downloaded a show (not from iTunes) on her laptop using windows. We want to use her iPod to transfer the data from that show onto my computer which is an iMac G5 Intel Core Duo.
We connected the iPod to my computer but it was not recognized. Is this because her iPod is formatted for Windows or is there possibly another reason?
if anyone could help that would be great.
thanks

From what I know, windows will not recognize the complicated data of a mac formatted device; hence not recognizing it. Macs can recognize a windows formated ipod though, so if you decide to reformat it on windows, then you can use it on both computers. If you dont though, looks like you are out of luck, sorry.
Hope I helped.

How can I transfer all my data from my mac to my laptop

Do anyone of you know how to transfer all my itunes data from my MAC to my laptop?
Thanks,

If you want Everything in iTunes...
Copy your ENTIRE iTunes FOLDER to an External Drive... and then from the External Drive to your New Computer..
iTunes to an External Drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
An Added Bonus is that you will have a Backup of iTunes.
There is also this...iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer

Time Machine back up to transfer data to new Mac.

Hi - I am trying to transfer my old Mac data to my new Mac via Time Machine and an external hard drive. When prompted to select a back up source, "Time Machine Backups" shows as an option. On the next screen, "No OS X system back ups were found" appears. In the notes it says only complete back ups of Mac OS X appear on the list. I'm transfering data from a Mac OS X Version 10.6.8. How do I make sure it is complete? I just backed it up again from my old Mac to make sure it was the most recent data.
Thank you.

This website should have answers to your questions:
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Ciao.

We can see thumbnails of horizontal photos but can't see full size photos after data transfer to new mac

hello,
We just updated to a new mac from a 7 year old Mac because the logic board died. =The Apple reseller did a data transfer and now we cannot see full size photos on our new screen. We see the thumb nails but when we try to open a photo in the photo section of the library we get a black screen with an exclaimation mark. How do we fix this?
thanks!

When you first boot your new Mac, it will boot into Setup Assistant. It will walk you through registration and then ask you if you want to migrate. Choose the disk you want to migrate from and choose all settings. No newer apps will be overwritten with older ones. No third party software will be lost. Although you should check compatiblity of apps with ML.
http://roaringapps.com/apps:table

How to transfer all of my data to another mac?

Hello folks,
I have a MacBook Pro 15", I recently bought an MBP 17", now I want to transfer all of my data from 15 to 17. All of my mails, network connections, settings and maybe applications.
What should I do in order to transfer my data? Is there any utility out there for doing so?
Thank you all in advance,
- Dunnil

Mac OS: Moving files from your older Macintosh to a new one
Learn how to move or copy files from an older Macintosh computer to newer one, for example, from a computer that uses Mac OS 8 or 9 to one that uses Mac OS X 10.2.
Tip: If you'd prefer to have someone move files for you, ask about data transfer services at your local Apple Retail Store. For more information, visit http://www.apple.com/retail/. In addition to the Apple Retail Stores, many Apple Specialists, Apple Resellers, and Apple Authorized Service Providers provide various levels of data transfer services. Check the Find Service page to locate an Apple Specialist in your area.
Tip: Some computers that come with Mac OS X 10.3.4 or later preinstalled, such as iMac G5 and Power Mac G5 (June 2004), include a version of Setup Assistant that lets you transfer information easily. The following document applies when you are moving (or "migrating") files manually from one computer to another and do not have that version of Setup Assistant.
Contents
What types of files should you move?
Transferring email
Transferring other files
About reusing memory (RAM), peripherals such as printers, and other third-party hardware
Internet settings
What types of files should you move?
There are probably thousands of files on your computer, including many used by the system software and applications. Thankfully, you do not need to move every file.
You should think about moving these types of files:
Personal documents that are stored on your hard disk, such as to-do lists, recipes, spreadsheets, personal webpages, and databases.
Personal pictures, icons, movies, songs, or other multimedia files that are stored on your the computer's hard disk.
Unfinished iMovie or iDVD projects.
Information you keep in Stickies or Notepad (You might want to copy this information and paste it into a SimpleText document.)
You will probably not need to move these types of files
Entire applications (see notes).
Log files or Read Me files
Anything inside the System Folder
Note: You may need to move preference files for third-party applications and third-party fonts that cannot be reinstalled from a disk. If you do not know exactly which preference or font files these are, you should not plan to move any preference or font files. It is often quicker to configure preference settings from scratch or reinstall applications from original disks on your new computer.
Note: If you use Apple applications with your older computer (such as DVD Player, iMovie, iTunes, and iDVD), your newer computer probably includes a version of the software, and you should not need to transfer the older version.
Will my applications (software) work on a new computer?
Moving files is great, but what about using them after they've been moved? In most cases, you will enjoy the best Mac OS X experience by using Mac OS X versions of your applications. However, most applications that work with Mac OS 9 work fine with Mac OS X. This is because Mac OS X includes a feature called the Classic environment, which lets you use your Mac OS 9 applications. Computers that come with Mac OS X installed also include a Mac OS 9 System Folder for the Classic environment. Want to use your current Mac OS 9 System Folder instead? No problem, just copy it from your older computer. Note that it should be using Mac OS 9.1 or later, and you should also delete the Mac OS 9 System Folder that came with the newer computer. For more information about Classic, choose Mac Help from the Help menu on your new computer.
Transferring email
For an easy transition, use Mac OS X Mail on your new computer. Make sure you set it up before you transfer any messages.
Use .Mac or IMAP?
If you use .Mac or another IMAP email account, this will be very easy. If you don't use IMAP with .Mac or don't know what IMAP is, skip this section.
You only need to configure the email application on your new computer, such as Mac OS X Mail, to work with your .Mac or IMAP account. You may have already done this when your computer started for the first time. Messages stored on the .Mac or IMAP server appear in Mail when you open it.
You need to move a small number of messages (using POP)
The easiest way to do this is to forward (or redirect, if your application allows) the messages you want to move to your own email address. Do not retrieve email on your older computer. Instead, retrieve email on your new computer (such as with Mac OS X Mail), and the messages that you forwarded will appear.
Alternatively, you can open the messages in your older computer's email application and save them to your hard disk volume. You can typically do this by opening the message and choosing Save or Save As from the File menu.
You need to move a large number of messages (using POP)
If the choices for moving a small number of messages above won't work very well, you will need to know how your email application stores email. In some cases, such as with Microsoft Outlook Express, messages are not stored individually on the hard disk, but are stored within the application's folder in "mail databases." In this case, you should move your email application's folder just as you would transfer other files (described below). After you've moved the older email application, open Mail and choose Import Mailboxes from the File menu. For more information, see these documents:
61459: "Mac OS X Mail: How to Import Email"
25330: "Mac OS X 10.1, 10.2: How to Import Addresses Into Address Book"
106996: "Mac OS X 10.2: About Import Addresses and Other Mail Scripts"
Some applications may store the messages or attachments as separate files. In this case you need to find the files and move them with the others as described below.
Other email services, such as America Online (AOL), or email you access through a Web browser such as Yahoo email or MSN Hotmail, may store your email on their mail servers. In this case, you should only be concerned with transferring messages that you have previously saved to your disk and deleted from the server. If these services normally work through your email application instead of a browser, see the transferring email section as well.
Note: To access AOL mail on your new computer, you will need to install a Mac OS X version of AOL.
If you're not sure how your email application stores email, refer to the documentation that came with it, or contact the publisher for more information.
Transferring other files
Using .Mac and iDisk
If you're a .Mac member, you can use your iDisk to copy files between computers. Copy files from your older computer to the iDisk, then from the iDisk to your new computer. If your iDisk isn't large enough to copy all the files at once, you can check your .Mac account settings to manage your iDisk space, consider purchasing a capacity upgrade, or copy fewer files at the same time. If you have individual files that are too big, consider using third-party software to compress your files or folders, such as Aladdin Stuffit.
Using a network or direct connection
If you already have a network and know how to transfer files across it from your older computer, it's just a matter of turning on file sharing on your new computer and copying files to it.
If you don't have a network you may be able to directly connect your computers for the transfer. See "Macintosh: How to Create a Small Ethernet Network". Even if you've never done this before, you'll find it's an easy process.
If you don't know how to set up or use file sharing in Mac OS X, see "Mac OS X: About File Sharing".
For more information, you can also read the Mac OS X Networking Support page.
In the unlikely event that your older computer does not include an Ethernet port or an AirPort card, consider transferring files by other means listed below.
Portable hard drive, iPod, or other storage device
You can use a portable hard drives to transfer data from one Macintosh computer to another. These drives usually have a FireWire (IEEE 1394, iLink) or a USB port. Make sure your older computer has a USB or FireWire port first.
If you have an iPod that works with your older computer and has some free space, you can use it like a portable hard drive, in Disk Mode.
Portable FireWire drives provide the fastest transfer rate and are widely available. Portable USB hard drives have a slower transfer rate, but you can use them to transfer files.
Burn a CD or DVD
One of the easiest ways to transfer files from your older computer is to make or "burn" a CD or DVD of them. This has the added benefit of creating a backup of your data. Your new computer should have no issue reading the burned CD. These documents may help:
58804: "Mac OS 9: How to Burn a CD and Choose a Format"
25545: "Mac OS X: When You Put in A Blank CD, It Doesn't Appear"
25402: "Macintosh: Factors That Affect Writing to or Reading From Optical Media"
Other portable media
You can also use portable ZIP, Jaz, magnetic optical (MO), or other forms of portable media to transfer files as long as the media device can be used on both computers.
Advanced method: Moving an entire hard drive
It is possible to move some kinds of hard drives from some older desktop Macintosh computers to newer ones, but you shouldn't do this unless you are an experienced computer user. Make sure your new computer has an available storage bay, cable connection, and internal bus to support the type of drive you have. You may also need to adjust master/slave or cable select jumper settings depending on the type of drive and type of new computer you have.
About reusing memory (RAM), peripherals such as printers, and other third-party hardware
Depending on the technologies your older computer uses, some hardware upgrades or peripheral devices may not work. To find out what's compatible, check with the items' manufacturers.
These kinds of hardware should work, but check with the manufacturer to make sure. You should also download the latest version of any drivers or support software from the manufacturer's website.
USB-based mouse devices, controllers, storage devices, cameras, handheld organizers (PDAs), or printers
FireWire-based cameras, hard drives, or other devices
These kinds of hardware are less likely to work with a new computer. You may need to purchase a more modern equivalent:
Memory (RAM) that works with your older computer
PCI or NuBus-based expansion cards
SCSI-1 or -2 devices that connect externally
Serial port- or LocalTalk-based devices
GeoPort hardware
You can search or browse tens of thousands of products made for Mac at the Macintosh Products Guide.
Internet settings and bookmarks
On your new computer, you'll need to enter Internet settings such as your type of connection and email account information. You may have already done this when the computer started for the first time. If not, see " Mac OS X: Internet and Network Topics (Getting Connected, Troubleshooting)".
Bookmarks (or "favorites") can be transferred in a number of ways. If you have a small number of bookmarks, you may find it easier to just set them up from scratch in your new computer's Web browser. Alternatively, you can paste the URLs of your bookmarks into an email message, mail it to yourself, then get the message with your new computer.
If you have lots of bookmarks, most Web browsers offer a way to export bookmarks to a single file. You can then transfer the file to your new computer, and import the file with your new Web browser.
Related documents
75320: "PC to Macintosh: How to Transfer Data"
107600: "Safari: Can Only Drag One Bookmark at a Time From Internet Explorer"

Is there a place in my CS6 that will show the key so I can have Mac do a data transfer?

My college provided all design graduates with a Macbook with CS6 Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Bridge, Extension manager, and Flash installed and registered with the key to Adobe. My laptop that they gave has gone bad and is being replaced this weekend by myself since my school won't fix it(per their contract they are required to so I plan to go after them for this but int he meantime) The school never provided us with the license key for this CS6, they did the install themselves, is there a place in my programs on my laptop that I can go to in order to get this key so I can have Mac do a data transfer?

Thanks, thats a good resource. However, it doesn't help in my situation, I didn't [urchase this or install it directly thru Adobe, as stated my college, College america(famous for their promotion that if you go to school with them and graduate you get a free laptop with all of CS6 included) this means they installed it as a mass install on all Design students laptops. They originally gave us CS5 then sent us a link to a site for upgrading to CS6, the email said this from the college;
Great News Regarding the Upgrade to CS6:
As it has been announced in your Design courses the free upgrade to CS6 is now available for all active Graphic Arts and Web Design students.
To get the upgrade please follow these 3 simple steps:
1- Copy and paste this link to your web browser: getmyisos.myvalcom.net
2- Select the download for your specific computer (Mac or HP)
It will take a long time to download, make sure you reset your “sleep” timer on your computer so it does not doze off during the download process. When it is complete…
When downloading the upgrade it (I guess, just speculating here) had the license bult in because it was never displayed it just downloaded and
i have used it ever since. I of course tried contacting the school for this but when you graduate from them, and are no longer a potential student they can suck up to sell you on their courses, they stop responding and being nice.
Does anyone have any other ideas? Is there a spot in the programs where if I open preferences in my Mac book or if I open he programs I can click something that displays the license in my laptop?
Thanks

Quicken 2007 investment data transfer to Quicken Essentials for Mac

Will my 10 plus years of investment data transfer from Quicken 2007 for Windows to Quicken Essentials for Mac without loss of data?

There is a version of Quicken 2007 for Lion and Mountain Lion available. If you own Quicken 2007 for Mac, it is a US$15 upgrade.
Many Users balked at the loss of capabilities in having to move to Quicken Essentials, and Quicken eventually came around and "ported" Quicken 2007 so that it could run on 10.7 and later. I run it and it mostly works, but for tax estimates, they force you to their online tax estimator or suggest you buy their stand-alone product that will accept tax info from Quicken -- no more ballpark estimates from inside Quicken.
https://quicken.intuit.com/personal-finance-software/quicken-2007-osx-lion.jsp
It appears the conversion from Quicken for PC is incomplete, and requires generation of a QIF file which is then imported:
https://quicken.intuit.com/support/help/pre-sales-questions/convert-data-from-qu icken-for-windows-to-quicken-for-mac/GEN82194.html

HT4796 Frozen mac during data transfer

My data transfer seems to have froze in the middle of it and I can't figure out how to cancel it on the new mac and start over. This is the first thing I have done on the new computer so I can't log-out or anything. Thanks!

You shouldn't use Migration Assistant to set up a new Mac. You should use Setup Assistant, which launched automatically the first time you started up. Did that happen?

Bottleneck in Data Transfer

We run a small network in our office consisting mainly of Intel iMacs we purchased several months ago. The server computer is a brand new Intel Mac Pro server with 4 500 gig drives raided together, two 2.66GHz dual core intel processors, all the other bells and whistles we could think of, etc. We added in two fiber-optic switches: one in the server room, one in the office. The switches connect to each other and the server with fiber optic cables, but the iMacs connect with ethernet cables.
We had the iMacs for a while but we just recently got the new server and upgraded our old 100 base switches. Afterwards we wanted to test out the data transfer speeds, as we plan to back up to the server frequently. We were dismayed to find that transfer rates capped out at 60 MegaBytes/sec according to the Activity Monitor's Network Activity tab. In fact, it would range mostly from 40-45MB/sec. None of us here have much experience with networking, but that seemed a tad too slow. My basic math tells me that a byte is 8 bits, and from that a Gigabit network should transfer data at 120 MegaBytes/sec, which is three times the speeds we were actually seeing.
We sent data both to and from the server in order to test this. Thinking it was perhaps a problem with the ethernet itself, we grabbed an external FireWire hard drive and transferred data from one of the iMacs directly to it and noticed exactly the same transfer rates. We plugged two iMacs directly into each other and transferred at the same rate, ~45MB/sec.
Well this was highly frustrating. All Macs supposedly ship with Gigabit ethernet since, what, 2002? Earlier? Why are our speeds so slow? We thought the hard drives might be slow, so we got info on the drives and googled them for their tech specs. The iMacs' Western Digital drives are capable of much much faster speeds according to everything we've read.
We started reading anything we could online that addressed this issue. Some information read the problem might be that the optical DVD-R/CD-R drive was only capable of slower transfer speeds. Since the optical drive and the hard drive are on the same bus it would slow down the hard drive's maximum transfer rate, much like having a Gigabit hub with a 10 base computer plugged into it would slow the entire network down (which is of course why we use switches instead of hubs). Is there any truth to this? If this is, in fact, the case, can we bypass this bottleneck somehow? I'm not talking about opening the computer and manually disabling the optical drive, as that's a waste of a perfectly good DVD-R/CD-R drive.
Also, if this is true, why in blue blazes is Apple flaunting Gigabit ethernet if the computer can only take advantage of 1/3 the speeds Gigabit ethernet has to offer?! I'll happily provide any more information that's relevant to the problem at hand.
Thank you
Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Here's the specs for the default Hard Drive that Apple put in here:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=137
From that page
Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 300 MB/s (Max)
Buffer To Disk 748 Mbits/s (Max)
I have no idea what signaling overhead for my data transfer protocol means.
The ethernet cords are no longer than 20 feet, are all Cat5E, and are well shielded. There is little to no ElectroMagnetic interference in any area they run. The longest cable is the Fiber Optic one, which runs about... oh... 40 yards? These were all installed by professionals.
I feel it's important to stress the fact that we tested an isolated direct computer to computer transfer with a single 6 foot Cat5E Ethernet cable and still experienced the same speeds that we experienced over the network. We tested multiple computers, multiple cables, multiple files.

Unsuccessful data transfer onto my new macbook pro- please help

I have just upgraded to a new 2.16GHz core 2 duo macbook pro and tried last night to transfer my data via firewire using the apple start up set up from my previous 1.83GHz core duo macbook pro bought in March 2006. Unfortunately there were errors in transferring my user folder. I subsequently used migration assistant with the old macbook pro in target disc mode and the same error occurred. I have now manually transferred my user folders by dragging them from the target disc old macbook pro drive into my new user folders in the HD of the new macbook pro. Please can anyone advise me whether this is all I need to do to have my user files on the new macbook pro ie are there any other files I should move over from the old to new computer? The applications transferred in the initial set up and several folders in my HD and it seems only the user folders didn't.
Can someone explain why this happened also please? I have checked the new HD with disc utility and it has no errors.
I have transferred files from several powerbooks in the past using the initial set up or migration assistant and haven't had problems like this before? I wonder whether the new computer is faulty? Please can anyone advise? Thanks

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
You can only sync the iPhone with one Mac or PC, so your Mac is asking you to erase the device because you synced it with another Mac or PC. To avoid this, I recommend you to copy the "iTunes" folder of your old Mac or PC (in Music folder) to the Music folder of your Mac, so you'll have the same data on your Mac as the data you had on the PC.
To transfer contacts, notes, etc., I recommend iCloud > http://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/

I bought a new iMac today. I'm using migration assistant to move all my software, but the time just keeps getting longer. It says connect an Ethernet cable for faster data transfer. I did, but that doesn't seem to help. Any ideas?

I bought a new iMac today. I'm using migration assistant to move all my software, but the time just keeps getting longer. It says connect an Ethernet cable for faster data transfer. I did, but that doesn't seem to help. Any ideas?

m1doc,
Are you migrating from a Mac or a MS Window machine? Either way you probably should be in touch with AppleCare, you have 90 days of free AppleCare telephone support. They can usually help on issues like this. If you don't know the phone number please use http://support.apple.com/kb/HE57 to help find the number in your country.

Very slow network directory listing - but fast data transfer speed once listed?

Hello,
I have really tried to sort this myself before opening up to the community, however I have run out of ideas, and hope someone can offer the magic solution I have missed.
I am currently using the 3.4ghz i7 iMac on a 1GB LAN, running OSX10.7.2 - connecting to a Windows Server 2008 (Running Release 2) over ethernet.
If i go to a network directory that i haven't recently accessed it can take up to 60 seconds to show the contents of that directory. Once i have accessed that folder, if i come out of it and go back in it will be instant again - but the first time it lists the directory it looks like i have opened an empty folder - which after anything from 10seconds to 1 minute will suddenly show the files that are there.
Internet connectivity is fast through the network, and file transfers across the LAN are fast. (showing as approx 300mb per second) I can play and edit HD content across the network with no slowdown so I am confident that this issue is not related to the network speed itself, and is more to do with a setting on this mac.
Symptoms are very similar to this post: https://discussions.apple.com/message/12245148?messageID=12245148&amp%3b#1224514 8 - however i understand that in OSX Lion - SMB was removed - so i cannot find this file to edit.
I have tried bypassing additional hubs in the network by wiring direct cables to the switch that is connected to the file server, this made no difference.
I have also tried disconnecting the ethernet cable, and running over wifi. This fixes the listing problem, but when editing HD content over a network drive, this connection is not fast enough to carry the data without interruption (some projects are linked to up to 900gb of hd video content!)
Using ethernet, I have tried DHCP, DHCP with manual address, and manual mode. All reproduce this problem. i have tried using the windows workgroup, and tried without it.
I have also followed this suggestion: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2134936?threadID=2134936&tstart=45 and used OpenDNS. this did not fix the issue.
For argument sake, I have also just tested a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard to see if it was OS related. This reproduces the exact same problem, near instant directory listing on the wifi, a long and arduous wait on ethernet.
I cannot work out why directory listing is instant over wifi, but not over ethernet on 2 different macs, running 2 different versions of OSX. I also do not understand why if the network is having trouble listing the directories - the data transfer speed is 300mbps when i copy files across the wired network from the file server to the mac.
Does anyone have any other ideas as to what could be the problem here? We are about to start work on a very large project, where the content we are editing is spread out across around 200 different network folders (different shoots captured over the past 2 years). We really don't have the time to wait 60 seconds each time we need to access one of those directories to look for a file, and I am very close to pulling all my hair out!
I really look forward to hearing from anyone who can offer any insight.

If you are suspecting that the Windows update had something to do with your LAN going slow, then try the following:
1. Look for updates for your clients LAN NIC driver; or
2. Un-install the updates.

Data transfer PC - Mac

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for