Moving sessions from one SCSI drive to another SCSI drive and PC

[j20056]

I use a rackmount Glyph SCSI drive to store audio files. My band mate does the same, and just got his setup last night. I immediately brought my HD and inserted it in his rack, and PT was able to load the session. So far so good. I then saved the session on his internal IDE drive, as a temporary session, using "Save Session Copy In" and checking all the boxes for all files. It took like 15mn, because the session is about 1.2GB. So far so good. I then switched back to his SCSI drive in the rack instead of mine, rebooted, loaded the temp session, checked that it played fine (it did), and then tried doing a "Save Session Copy In" to his SCSI drive. After more than 15mn, the system finally hung. I tried a couple of times with no success.
Finally, I did the unthinkable: Copy the entire session directory "by hand" form Win98 Explorer, it took only 4mn, and I then could load the session. PT did mention that the drive went from D: to E: upon loading, but it is smart enough to know.
My question is: What is the most safe way to transfer files with rackmount? Do artists in studios show up with their hard disk bays, record and go home with them, or the studio keeps ther master, and how to exchange files and be in sync, without omitting audio, midi, automation and plugin setting files? I would hate to lose some of my sessions pieces because of dumb file transfer experience. Help appreciated.

[mattm]

if an artist comes in with their own drive, i usually work from that, provided it is HFS (Mac) format. if it's a FAT32 (PC) drive, the files have to be copied to an HFS drive as the Mac doesn't like recording/playing on FAT32. to perform this function, i simply grab the folder and drop it on the Mac drive - it's not necessary to use Save Session Copy.

file synchronisation could be a little difficult to get right. if i've understood correctly, you and your bandmate work collaboratively? the best way i can think to 'synchronise' sessions is to put both drives in the same chassis, open each others sessions individually, save them with a new name and use the Import Track feature.

~matt