[svlug] help transfering data over 1394 cable

[Brian J. Tarricone]

Christian Einfeldt wrote:
> hi,
> 
> I need to transfer massive amounts of video from one Ubuntu box to another,
> and I wanted to get some advice before messing with anything.  So I would
> appreciate any tips you might have, particularly as to traps for the unwary,
> because I have a knack for falling into such traps.  heh.
> 
> I am moving data from a Gutsy 32 bit install to a Hardy 32 bit install.
> More details on the specs below.
> 
> I guess it is probably obvious (not sure) that ssh and fish is probably not
> going to cut it, as it seems I am only getting 700 kbs or so over my subnet,
> and I really should be using 1394 (firewire) anyway.

Not at all obvious to me.  Assuming you have gigabit ethernet (I'd be 
surprised if a box built in the last 6 months doesn't), it will easily 
be faster than firewire (you appear to be using the 400Mbps version of 
firewire from your specs).  So you either want to 1) figure out why 
fish/scp is slow, and fix it, or (likely easier) 2) use another network 
transport like NFS, FTP, or SMB to transfer the files.

As an aside, I'm not sure there are Linux tools to let you connect two 
firewire host controllers directly and copy files between hosts.  The 
hardware is almost certainly capable of it, but the configuration might 
be quite messy, even if the tools to do it do indeed exist.

	-brian