Have you tried using SCP? I don't know if Windows comes with a client but a quick search turned up a few options. It is my goto method for transferring files these days but I admittedly don't use Windows.
I'd love to know the transfer speed differences between SCP, SFTP and FTP - because when I can view both ends of the wire then security is less of a concern than transfer time.
The difference is negligible when both machines are fast enough to encrypt/decrypt at wire speed, otherwise FTP is faster.
Have you tried using SCP? I don't know if Windows comes with a client but a quick search turned up a few options. It is my goto method for transferring files these days but I admittedly don't use Windows.
I'd love to know the transfer speed differences between SCP, SFTP and FTP - because when I can view both ends of the wire then security is less of a concern than transfer time.
The overhead of encryption is marginal and the advantage of being able to compress the stream is considerable.
scp and rsync, which is a fantastic companion, allows on-the-fly compression of content to get truly impossible speeds over the wire.
Does nobody use rsync? I see no mention in the comments here (and the original site is down).
There's a few command line parameters to learn, but after that it is so simple, efficient and reliable that there is no need for a GUI client such as the various FTP FTP clients. I typically write scripts for specific purposes, syncing only the files that have changed. Using my SSH key means I don't have to type the password all the time.
WebDAV is a trainwreck. SFTP could be nice but the OpenSSH impl falls terribly short as a FTPd replacement (the most useful implementation is ironically the one in ProFTPd). Sendfile never went anywhere. Network filesystems don't cut the FTP use-case either.
People don't use FTP because they like it. They use it for the lack of a viable alternative.
Have you tried using SCP? I don't know if Windows comes with a client but a quick search turned up a few options. It is my goto method for transferring files these days but I admittedly don't use Windows.
I'd love to know the transfer speed differences between SCP, SFTP and FTP - because when I can view both ends of the wire then security is less of a concern than transfer time.
I just tested ftp and scp between my laptop and server over wireless and got about 2.5MB/s on both.
Sign me up, but where's the alternative? WebDAV is a trainwreck. SFTP could be nice but the OpenSSH impl falls terribly short as a FTPd replacement (the most useful implementation is ironically the one in ProFTPd). Sendfile never went anywhere. Network filesystems don't cut the FTP use-case either. People don't use FTP because they like it. They use it for the lack of a viable alternative.
cleaver and sehugg have both mentioned rsync, which I also think is a viable alternative. If possible, I try to use scp - is there any reason neither of these are viable alternatives?
The only reason I ever use ftp is because I'm forced to with my godaddy hosting.
I think SFTP is an excellent alternative to FTP (as well as FTP over SSL/TLS). It's a whole lot safer than FTP and it solves the archaic annoyance of data ports. Sadly the OpenSSH solution is over the top awkward when it comes to setting up chrooted access, but it works. Introducing something entirely new at this point makes no sense - the situation isn't really as serious as some people want to make it out to be.
The reason FTP is still so pervasive is that FTP clients use a similar interface to the file browser on a computer. Your average person has no idea that the command line even exists. Yes, FTP isn't a very good protocol, but the interface is identical for SFTP.
FTP is definitely outdated, and there are better uses in many circumstances. But I find some of these criticisms a bit odd. The client listening was largely solved by 'passive' mode, and just about every server and client supports this now. The firewall and NAT interaction is awkward, but most modern firewalls can deal with this automatically (as long as there's no SSL involved) And yes, the RFC is 20 years old. But…
FTP is as obsolete as telnet and has no place being alive today. SSH and SCP provide a much more secure alternative. SFTP is a hack that suffers from all the same problems.
How do you mean, SFTP is a hack that suffers from all the same problems? SFTP is a new protocol, it's not the same as FTP. It doesn't concern itself with data port nonsense, and while it doesn't offer authentication or secure transfers in itself, there is - at least to my knowledge - no SFTP solution available that doesn't perform SFTP via an underlying mechanism for secure auth/transfer.
Sign me up, but where's the alternative? WebDAV is a trainwreck. SFTP could be nice but the OpenSSH impl falls terribly short as a FTPd replacement (the most useful implementation is ironically the one in ProFTPd). Sendfile never went anywhere. Network filesystems don't cut the FTP use-case either. People don't use FTP because they like it. They use it for the lack of a viable alternative.
cleaver and sehugg have both mentioned rsync, which I also think is a viable alternative. If possible, I try to use scp - is there any reason neither of these are viable alternatives? The only reason I ever use ftp is because I'm forced to with my godaddy hosting.
For many use-cases rsync and scp are not adequate. For example neither can provide a file-listing or interactively walk a tree, which is essential for a wide range of push-based or fileserver-style applications.