Could you possibly move it over a network? That might be faster in all honesty.

Use an ethernet cord, if youre asking this question then you likely have one lying around. I did it a few months ago, had to jump some hoops like disconnecting from all networks and making folders discoverable to get it working though

Unfortunately you would need some kind of electronics in the middle. You can get USB “bridged” or “networking” cables, but they aren’t regular USB cables.

However, the electronics could be a smartphone if you have one. Transfer the files from your old laptop to the phone, then to your new laptop.

Ultimately, networking would be the easiest and fastest way to do it. If you’re on Windows, you could use a program such as FastCopy to verify the files on the receiving end.

There is evidently something called a “usb transfer cable” which can do the job. It has a special electronic chip in the middle that tricks each PC on either side into thinking the other is a usb stick. (Or something!??)

I’ve never used one, and didn’t know there was such a thing which existed until minutes ago.

If one happens to be an Apple brand, they do have something called Target Disk Mode, but assuming not since you say PC.

You probably can

Do they both have Thunderbolt ports? Windows, Mac, or Linux? Wired or wireless networking?

If they both have thunderbolt 3/4 and you have a cable you can connect both to the cable and use Thunderbolt networking. MSI has a pretty good how to

Otherwise:

• Transfer over network (buy usb ethernet adapter if necessary $10-15 on amazon)
• Buy USB transfer cable and use it to transfer
• Remove HD from old laptop, buy compatible external HD enclosure, put it in external HD enclosure and connect it to new laptop
• Copy files from old laptop to existing external drive, then connect external drive to new laptop

As someone else said, either a USB transfer cable or

a USB network adapter and your local network.

When I was a kid and game boys were a thing with the data transfer cable I was pretty shocked to find out that computers didn’t work in the same way. Kinda still shocked they dont. There is target disk mode on Macs tho

Perhaps Syncthing?

I think that the problem you run into is that USB isn't a network of peers. There's a host, and devices that it talks to. The USB controller circuitry needs to support acting as a device, and unless something has changed, I don't think that laptop USB controllers can normally do that.

There are devices with USB controllers that can, like Android devices, which is why you can both plug your phone into a computer as well as attach USB devices to the phone.

Lots of people are suggesting network cables and the likes.

But if the data is so valuable you want to migrate it then isn't it also worth backing it up? I'd buy an external HD, copy the data onto that and then copy it to your new laptop and keep the hard drive somewhere safe as a backup.

Without buying any cables, go to toffeshare.com, select what you need and check the “Share with nearby devices” box to transfer everything over the local network. Just put both PCs on the same wifi network.

If you're on the same network I would just use Filezilla ftp client. Download it on both devices and you can transfer whatever between them.

Are you planning on keeping the old laptop? If it's not a proprietary drive type you could probably just take it out and pop it into your new computer. Most newer laptops can support two
SSD. If they're both M.2 drives you wouldn't even need a new cable, just a screwdriver.

If you're on the same network I would just use Filezilla ftp client. Download it on both devices and you can transfer whatever between them.

Are you planning on keeping the old laptop? If it's not a proprietary drive type you could probably just take it out and pop it into your new computer. Most newer laptops can support two
SSD. If they're both M.2 drives you wouldn't even need a new cable, just a screwdriver.

If speed is your concern, you may also want to try network cable or wifi. You can share, access, and copy files over the network.

For USB, if you can use a USB 3 Port specifically it'll be faster than USB 2 ports.

I'm not familiar with direct us pc connections. When you connect the two via USB, the OS may ask you what kind of connection it is. One will have to serve as the host or controller, and the other as a device like a storage device.

A regular ethernet cable is sufficient in most cases. Except for ancient network cards, most newer ones know to flip the wiring to be able to communicate between two computers.

The only thing is that you need to set the network options manually in both computers - set the IP address and subnet. Then just transfer it using any network file sharing protocol. (Windows already has file sharing, Linux you can use sftp, or use a http server)

use smb ftp sftp or something similar, just make sure both laptops are connected to the router with ethernet. if the old laptop has its storage easily accessible then I might also just take it out and plug it into my sata dock