I’ve Googled and have found several sites that claim to host file sharing for large files, but none of them seem to be able to handle a single file that’s over 4GB. I need to share a file over that size with someone that’s not too computer savvy (and if I can do it without burning it to a disc and mailing it, that would be great). Any ideas?
How much over your limit are you? Could you use one of the many available compression utilities to make it small enough for you?
Do you think seeding your own private bit torrent is beyond your capacities?
It would have the benefit of not taking double the time (upload, then download)
There are various ways of splitting a large file into multiple files, and then splicing them again later on. WinRAR is one example.
Another possibility might be to use a VPN software like Hamachi to let him/her access your home network. However I don’t know if the connection is reliable enough to copy a 4GB file in one go; you may need to find a file copy program that allows you to stop and resume.
Most of the limits I’ve seen for free file uploading are 2GB. It’s an ISO file. I just compressed it with MagicISO and it’s still at over 3GB and is now an UIF file. I would then have to give the recipient instructions on making it an ISO file again, and she may get frustrated and not be able to follow the instructions I give her properly. But if I can find a way to share it, it may be worth a shot.
I’m sure I could handle it, but I already know asking the recipient to download and use a torrent client is going to get her to reply with “Can’t you just mail me a DVD? I don’t want to go through all of that.” I know I may be asking for too much, but I figured it was worth a try.
For sending a file to someone that isn’t too computer savvy, the easiest way to do this is just to buy a cheap USB thumb drive, copy the file, and mail it. All the person has to do is plug it in on the other side. You didn’t say how big the file is but you can buy 8GB drives in the <$15 range and smaller ones cheaper than that. A micro SD card like many computers can read can be mailed in a regular envelope if that is an option.
You can do it for free but I wouldn’t recommend it. The upload (especially) and download time of multi-gigabyte files is too long for all but the fastest connections.
Check out these options if you insist on doing it that way. There is free file sharing with up to at least a 10 GB limit.
What’s the big deal with mailing it?
You can download a program like MPEG Streamclip for free, and use it to further compress your video file.
You’d get good results by running your video through MPEG Streamclip, selecting whatever video format you’re already using, and moving the quality bar down to 70% or so. That typically will reduce your video size by half (rough estimate!). I’m not sure why there isn’t a 1:1 ratio between quality reduction and size, but it’ll work perfectly for what you need.
Then you can upload it to whatever video sharing service you want.
Edit: This is assuming it’s a video file. I just checked, and you never name what kind of file it was. For some reason, I had just assumed.
I’ve used winrar to get big files to people who aren’t computer savvy. All the user has to do is download all the files to the same place, then double click on the first file.
Does bit-torrent make any sense for files where there’s just one uploader and one downloader? I can’t think of any advantages over just using ftp or scp.
Does windows still come with ftp (testing…yes, apparently it does). That would seem to be the easiest answer. Email the commands to your friend and just tell him/her to cut and paste them into the terminal or if your savy enough, write a script that will do it for him.
Thanks for the replies, everyone. The above suggestion is probably my best bet. I found the following YouTube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRV0WjBqBS4
Yes, Astral Rejection, it’s a video file. If I run into trouble using WinRAR, I’ll try your suggestion next.
Shagnasty, I found that same article before I started this thread. None of the free alternatives listed worked despite the claims.
If Fantome has the hosting space on a server, you don’t even have to get the client to ftp. Just send them a URL, and have them click on it and save to disk. That’s what I usually do if I’m in this situation.
I tried doing this with an ISO file once but it didn’t work. I had an empty 4Gb USB drive and the ISO was something like 2.3Gb. It told me the file was too big to save and I think it is because my 4Gb drive is actually two or more smaller drives inside the same device. Someone with better technical knowledge will clarify this but just beware that a USB drive might not be the solution for a huge file like this. I would suggest either the ftp route or dividing the file up and sending clear instructions on how to put them together again.
The only reason I could think of this is that the card was formatted as FAT16, but I also can’t see any reason why it’d be formatted as FAT16. FAT32 has a limit of 4GB (and this is a problem I have heard of people running into–they need to convert it to NTFS).
Just looked and it is FAT32 - I did format it at the time to ensure it was completely free of info but perhaps I did it as FAT16 and only subsequently as FAT32 - who knows. I sorted the problem since anyway. Interesting to try to find out but don’t want to hijack the thread which is a problem Fantome obviously needs solving!
Sign up for something like Yahoo Messenger. Add each other as contacts. Coach the other person on the phone as to how to do this. Send the file through this. YM cares not what your file size is. I used to do this for pretty sizable files. Yahoo isn’t storing the file, so they don’t care at all how you use it.
There is approximately zero chance this will be useful to you, but I was reading about it just yesterday and I can’t resist sharing: IP over Avian Carriers - Wikipedia