I compared a few different methods in linux on a 100Mbit network:
Method Bytes Time Speed
smb mount then cp 733960192 425 1.647 MB/s
scp 730253312 69.48* 10.0241 MB/s
wget using http 736274432 63.2 11.1097 MB/s
rsync - - comparable to scp
- scp includes the time it took my to type in my 40+ character password. Subtract out at least 3-4 seconds.
- scp and wget actually locked up my network connection. putty timed out. top indicated than an entire core was dedicated to the copy.
- I don't have numbers for rsync, but the they were comparable to scp
So, in linux, I could transfer 80GB in 2 hours of ignoring it and not babying the process. I find that preferable to moving a hard drive between computers, since they requires me to actually pay attention and shut things down.
Windows sharing would probably not be as fast as scp.