A server administrator is tasked with migrating several terabytes of user data from an old Windows file server to a new one. The migration will occur over a weekend and the network connection is known to be unreliable. A key requirement is that all original NTFS permissions and file attributes must be preserved on the new server. The process must also be automated and generate a detailed log file upon completion. Which of the following tools is BEST suited for this task?
The correct answer is Robocopy. Robocopy (Robust File Copy) is a command-line tool built for these types of migrations in a Windows environment. It includes switches to preserve NTFS ACLs (/SEC or /COPY:S), resume copying after network interruptions (/R:n /W:n), and create detailed logs (/LOG:file). XCOPY is an older, less capable utility that lacks the advanced resiliency and logging features of Robocopy. SCP is used for secure transfers, typically in Linux environments, and does not natively preserve complex Windows NTFS permissions. FTP is a standard protocol for file transfer but does not preserve file permissions and is not inherently resilient to interruptions.