How to know which USB device or network device to disable power-saving shut-off for when transferring files?

I'm trying to transfer a lot of files (tens of gigabytes at this point, but it could be hundreds) over a network from one USB-connected drive on a laptop to another one (of each). However, I come back to the desk (after the screen has gone to sleep) after a long while (like, 1-10 hours), and the transfer has stopped with an error that the network is disconnected or the remote laptop isn't on the network anymore or the drive doesn't exist or the file doesn't exist The laptops are configured to never go to sleep or hibernate automatically while plugged in (as they both are). Also on one of the devices, it loses WiFi connection when I wake the screen after hours.

I've tracked down the problem to likely be Windows' device settings to shut-off the device for power-saving reasons after a set time period of not using the device (like when I walk away from the computer). The timeout is apparently not related to the typical power settings based on keyboard and mouse usage, but is within its own arbitrarily-determined Microsoft realm. It's absurd that Microsoft would program Windows to stop ongoing file transfers with power-saving features on plugged-in devices... it just goes against what the user is trying to do.

When I follow instructions to disable the power-saving feature for the devices, so that large transfers can complete in the background over hours or days (I've never had the issue with Linux), I can't tell which devices to change. There's a long list in Network and USB devices (in Device Manager) that looks like gobbledygook to me for the most part. I don't want to toggle one that I don't need to then have an issue. I'll try to paste screenshot examples below from the computer I'm on right now:





The devices on the other computer are similar but of course have their own names because it's an older device.

How do I tell which ones to disable power-saving feature so I can do large file transfers uninterrupted?!

elevadu said:

How do I tell which ones to disable power-saving feature

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I believe any power saving settings are per usb host controller/hub, not per device.

If you are talking hundreds of GB of data if it were me, I would not even attempt a copy. I would use backup software to backup the files/folders on one drive I would then restore that backup to the second drive.

Just to make sure there was no conflict between file/folder names between the drives I would probably first create one master folder on the old drive and move everything else on the drive into it. (or just the file/folders I planned on putting on the second drive.) You can do that in bulk. I would then backup just that folder. You can always split the files/folders out of the master folder after the restore, again in bulk.

glasskuter said:

I believe any power saving settings are per usb host controller/hub, not per device.

Click to expand...

That doesn't answer the question you quoted: "How do I tell which ones to disable power-saving feature"

Look at the screenshot showing the lines under the expanded line "Universal Serial Bus controllers"; those are literally considered "devices" by Windows (whether they are or aren't). They each have their own Properties, and many have the power-saving toggle.

I think maybe you're not understanding the context. I want to only disable the power-saving feature for the "devices" that are necessary to prevent interrupted file transfer when the screen goes to sleep. The laptops do not go to sleep or hibernate while plugged in, which they are while transferring. The screen goes to sleep, then at some point minutes or hours later, the file transfer is interrupted either because the external USB device on one of the laptops is disconnected, or their WiFi or something else is disconnected due to some power-saving timeout somewhere.

The fact that Microsoft allows devices in use for file transfer to disable and interrupt the transfer... that's just stupid. I'm trying to find the right way to workaround the stupidity.

glasskuter said:

If you are talking hundreds of GB of data if it were me, I would not even attempt a copy. I would use backup software to backup the files/folders on one drive I would then restore that backup to the second drive.

Click to expand...

I don't need backup software, that's usually a bunch of bloated claptrap that's doing who-knows-what to my data and tracking who-knows-what on my computers. A File Explorer copy/move is completely adequate. Doing it over WiFi through the router works completely fine with Linux (regardless of how much data is being transferred), but Windows is breaking things due its own over-zealous power-saving BS and I can't tell what-all I actually need to toggle off without being excessive.

glasskuter said:

Just to make sure there was no conflict between file/folder names between the drives I would probably first create one master folder on the old drive and move everything else on the drive into it. (or just the file/folders I planned on putting on the second drive.) You can do that in bulk. I would then backup just that folder. You can always split the files/folders out of the master folder after the restore, again in bulk.

Click to expand...

There's no problem with file/folder names Everything is NTFS. There's been no errors related to files/folders having a problem. All of the errors indicate a device was disconnected (ie "lost").

I already know how to unplug one of the USB drives and plug it into the other computer, but there's some complications with that I don't need to get into here. I'd rather just figure out how to make this work wirelessly, not only for this, but for the future as well.

If anyone actually knows what-all I'm supposed to toggle off, without being excessive, that would be helpful. I get exhausted having to re-explain the scenario for people just guessing and throwing spaghetti at the wall.

@elevadu, you might want to be more patient. Everyone here volunteers their time to help people. Being frustrated and therefore short with those who try to help you isn’t going to get you very far.

SoFine409 said:

short with those who try to help you isn’t going to get you very far.

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Nope it won't. Belligerence is not appreciated, nor does talking down to someone who was trying to help you. I understood your question perfectly. I tried to give you a workaround that works for me in the rare instances I need to copy large files or amounts of files. Since I'm in an especially good mood today I will point out that direct transfer of large amounts of data has long been a problem with file corruption and transfer stops. It's not a wise thing to do. That's why there are 3rd party tools specially designed to handle large transfers such as Fastcopy, Teracopy, Robocopy and Xcopy to name a few.
Have a good evening.

SoFine409 said:

@elevadu, you might want to be more patient. Everyone here volunteers their time to help people. Being frustrated and therefore short with those who try to help you isn’t going to get you very far.

Click to expand...

I think you and the other poster have not read well I've written.

Saying that the power-saving toggle is per hub not device doesn't answer the question: which ones to disable.

My frustration is completely irrelevant and not at anyone in particular. There's no impatience here, just trying to fix a problem but annoyed that the responses appear to not understand what I asked (because they gave me nothing more specific to answer the question with, as stated above).

Regardless, I just disabled anything I could find related to power-saving and transferring files over the network... and guess what?! That didn't solve the problem.

Windows updating solved it... for a day. Something else is wrong.

So yah, while it would have been nice to get a more specific answer, it would have been better to see "I'm not sure which ones in particular you should disable" or "I can't tell because it could be different or risky between different systems to recommend anything in particular".

I know everyone here is not a paid support specialist (I never assumed it either), but even volunteers like myself on forums have a responsibility to respond in a way that shows the issues being responded to have been considered adequately (meaning, progress the issue forward and be honest when you can't and can only offer some help or guesses, I'm fine with either, but vague answers that look like the question wasn't understood just look bad).

Please run the V2 log collector > post a share link





Run get_powercfg_info > post a share link

Just connect the disks and use some SENSIBLE file transfer software -- Filezilla (client) is a good GUI one and easy to use-- free also for Windows and is fine whether the disks are on the SAME computer or a remote one over a network.

Cheers
jimbo

I suspect about hw instability instead of powersaving features, w/o discarding sw instability. Maybe net devices aren't designed for such long and uninterrupted file copies.

I once read something like "don't disparage the bandwidth of a van carrying data tapes" although I admit it has a lot of latency lol. When I have mounted a new computer I have the problem of copying my data to it (about 110 GB now, excluding disk images), I have never thought deeply about this action but normally I connect the internal data drive of other computer, internally. To be absolutely clear, I dismount the internal data drive from other computer, I carry it to where the newly mounted computer is (including its own data drive, currently empty, this travel has always been inferior to 10 meters in my case), and mount it internally, resulting a computer with temporarily 2 internal data disks, one with data the other empty. I then copy the files with Windows Explorer or FastCopy (the latter can copy stuff beyond the 260 chs path limit, I believe in my latter occasion I copied with Windows Explorer and afterwards with FastCopy for the few files I have in such paths). When everything's finished I dismount the "guest" drive and I return it to its computer.

Nothing like an internal bus.

The most similar I have to a laptop is a miniPC. Mine has a permanently connected USB disk as data disk. I suppose I used one of the USB sticks I use to back up my data as the source of data in this case (this miniPC has room for an M2 disk, but if all other conditions were met I wouldn't use it for transferring data, as it requires dismounting the miniPC as a whole, it's fanless and the aluminun upper side, held by screws accesible from the bottom, does as processor heatsink (10 W TDP), and I would also have to detach 8 cables it has attached, all vs plugging in a USB stick).

Maybe they haven't deployed an uninterruptible enough net technology for client computers over Ethernet? If you don't have other way, what about decreasing the bit rate in both ends?

100*1024^3*8/100E6/3600 = 2.386 hours (ideally) for 100 GB at 100 Mbit/s