One or more embodiments provide techniques for migrating a virtualized computing instance between source and destination virtualized computing systems. A migration assist agent creates a content based read cache (CBRC), which generates one or more digest files. Each of the one or more digest files corresponds to a container file. The migration assist agent transmits CBRC metadata and the one or more digest files to the destination virtualized computing system. The migration assist agent transmits one or more pages belonging to the CBRC to the destination virtualized computing system. For each container file, the migration assist agent references the digest file corresponding to the container file with the CBRC to determine if a hash value is in the CBRC. Responsive to determining that the hash value in the digest file is in the CBRC, the migration assist agent marks the container file as complete.