"Correct" / best practices way to transfer files from one computer to another, via an external hard drive

• I have an old computer, running Windows 7 Pro.
• I have a new computer, running Windows 11 Enterprise.
• I have a USB-A external hard drive by Seagate.

I wish to transfer my documents and other files (but not operating system files), totaling around 1.5 TB, from the old computer to the external hard drive, and then from the external hard drive to the new computer.

Note that I will be doing this using "Sneakernet":

• I will plug in the external hard drive to the old computer, then transfer the files from the old computer to the external hard drive.
• When that's done, I'll unplug the external hard drive from the old computer and plug it in to the new computer.
• Finally, I'll transfer the files from the external hard drive to the new computer.

What is the "correct" / best practices way to do the file transfers? It's not clear to me that simply copying and pasting in File Explorer is the best way.

• In particular, I'm wondering about the "File Created" metadata. I'd like to retain the metadata from the original source (old computer), because the documents were not actually created on the date I actually copied them. In Linux, I think one can do this using cp -a, with -a standing for "archive." Is there an analogous way to do this in Windows 7 and 11 (both using NTFS, I believe), either using File Explorer or Command Prompt?

When in Windows files are copied from one drive to another (maybe external) drive, the file creation date will always be changed to the moment that the copy took place.

But normally spoken that should not be a problem, because there is an attribute called modified date/time as well. And that attribute will stay the same when the file is transfered from one computer to another and will be used by software that needs to see which files are newer than others.

With utilities like Teracopy TeraCopy for Windows - Code Sector or FastCopy FastCopy you can copy or move with files also acl or metadata, choosing which specified metadata (date, hour, attributes etc.) you want to preserve. You can also automatically verify at the end the accuracy of the process.

I use the following and it is cheap.

Fab's AutoBackup Home & Office​

Fabs AutoBackup 7 Home & Office is a very handy tool allowing to backup and restore various files and settings (documents, music, videos, e-mails, web browsers settings) from any Microsoft Windows computer.
store.fpnet.fr

On the last step, there is a choice to keep folder dates.​

robocopy

Robocopy "C:\somefolder" "E:\somefolder" /DCOPY:T /COPYALL /S /R:0

/DCOPY:DCflag[s] : What to COPY for Directories
(DCflags : D=Data, A=Attributes, T=Timestamps,
E=EAs, X=Skip alt data streams).

/COPYALL : Copy ALL file info

/S : Copy Subfolders

/R:n : Number of Retries on failed copies