Transferring files from XP capture to macOS editing system?

[shanedownfall]

Hi folks. Lordsmurf is currently building an XP-based capture machine for me, and while I'm waiting for that, I'm figuring out the rest of my workflow. I would like to do all editing on my Mac, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to transfer files from my capture machine to my Mac.

The simplest approach seems to be copying any files onto a USB flash drive or external hard drive. If this is the recommended path, what USB flash drive or hard drive do you recommend? It would obviously need to be readable and writable by both machines, ideally fast for reads and writes, and have plenty of capacity to allow me to move multiple large files.

Perhaps there's a better path. If I was working with two Unix-based machines I'd use something like rsync/scp, but I'm not familiar with something similar for transfers from XP -> macOS (and XP being so old certainly complicates things here)

Any input would be appreciated

[lordsmurf]

Yes, easiest is copying files:
internal WinXP capture HDD > external HDD > Mac

But details matter.
- max 2tb allowed in XP
- USB3 is an option with added PCIe USB3 card, but still 2tb max
- Mac needs to read NTFS

Another option is the 10 GbE (10gig ethernet) -- something I want to do, but haven't. The benefit here is no middleman "hdd > copy > copy (again)" for file movement. XP is a PITA to network, however. So you'd want to "dual boot" (physically switch boot drives in Win system) from WinXP to Win7/10. I'm actually looking into a boot switch myself, for other reasons, Kingwin has one on Amazon.
NOTE: This needs to be an air-gapped network, too! Not online.

I use Linux desktops daily. Great OS (Xubuntu and Mint). But rsync not needed, and it's mess with captures.

So 2tb USB3 drives, about $65 from Best Buy from their eBay store. I'd just get one for transfer needs. Maybe a couple more if you plan to process off the drive directly, saving to the new location.

I really had hoped XP Integral would have allowed my 5tb Seagates, but nope.
^ This is why I want to dual-boot XP/10, but again a physical switch.

[hodgey]

There is an official exFAT driver for windows xp (though they don't host it themselves anymore), so it's possible to use that, which is better supported on macOS instead of NTFS. You also have to make sure the drive is not GPT formatted for windows xp to be able to read it.

Besides dual boot with win7/10 another option would be to dual boot to linux to use either network transfer including rsync and similar (you can disable the network for winxp) or larger drives. It's pretty easy to set up win/linux dual boot, especially if you are already familiar with linux, most distros will do it for you.

[shanedownfall]

Thank you both, that all makes sense. I'll likely stick with the hard drive approach for now, as figuring out networking or dual booting with XP does not sound fun I'll definitely explore the exFAT path, as it would be nice to avoid needing any special software on the macOS side.

[lordsmurf]

Dual booting via software is often screwy (sometimes corrupting both OS), but a hardware switch should be easy.

As mentioned, this is something I'm looking into right now. Boot Win10 from SSD, boot XP from HDD, both can share the 2tb SATA capture drive. That means you can transfer to larger faster modern USB3 drives, like the excellent Seagate 5tb portables. There's always some art to getting all pieces of system to cooperate, but this is going well so far.

The actual "switch" (A/B) is expensive, doesn't work well. But Kingwin has a HDD power controller. So when computer still off, you'll press power for the boot drive you want -- and make sure power is OFF to the drive NOT being booted. If you enable both, there may be issues. And never accidentally press those power buttons while the system is on. The intention of the Kingwin box was to power/de-power hot-swappable drives, but the boot swap is a nice side effect that people have figured out.

[NJRoadfan]

macOS natively supports Windows SMB file sharing (its actually the official method these days as the old AppleShare AFP is deprecated). Create a share on the XP machine and the Mac should be able to see it and pull files.