One for the IT people out there - help please re SSD

[PeterCPC]

Like @Thalestris24 I have been debating on installing a SSD in my desktop. Not for speed really but for reliability reasons as I have had an HDD fail on a laptop not long ago and I dread it happening to my desktop. I have bought a 500GB Crucial SSD and fitting it in the case looks very straightforward BUT it's what happens then that has me concerned.

First the basics - My desktop is running Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit and has a 1TB HDD and i5 with 16GB RAM. Only 310GB of the HDD has been used and 220GB of that relates to documents, pictures, videos etc. What I would like to do is migrate the OS and programs to the SSD and have the HDD for storage. I have watched many YouTube videos about cloning and am now thoroughly confused because there are contradictions.

Would I be able to clone the entire HDD to the SSD and then move the "documents" back to the HDD? Would the HDD need to be formatted after the SSD is set up and would it automatically become the C drive for booting after the cloning process? I have made a System Recovery Drive just in case. I have also got a back up external drive with all my "documents" and some programs.

I am begining to wish that I had not thought of doing this as my desktop works fine (at the moment) and I don't want to mess anything up.

Your advice/guidance would be most welcome as usual.

Peter

[alexbb]

Searching on google for "move hdd to ssd windows 10" yields good results.

https://www.easeus.com/backup-utility/migrate-windows-10-to-ssd.html

https://www.backup-utility.com/articles/replace-laptop-hdd-with-ssd-4348i.html

Or https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/move-windows-10-from-installed-hdd-to-installed/1a2082d2-aa23-44fe-87a7-77b4e53aa901

There's not much to worry about. Just don't mess with the (current) primary HDD until you manage to boot from the SSD.

After you successfully boot from the SSD, you can wipe your HDD and use it however you want.

[souls33k3r]

Oh boy! haven't done this in a very long time. 15 years give or take.

Here's what i would've done if all the results came back confusing me.

I would disconnect the main HDD, plug in the SSD and install a fresh Win10 on it. Once installed, make the HDD a slave and plug all the cable back in.

Copy the data you want to keep from your slave HDD to the root and then blitz the rest of the HDD. It won't be clean but at least you'll have what you need.

I hope this helps. 

[Yawning Angel]

Crucial gives away Acronis true image for this job - https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/storage-ssd-getting-started

I've not used this specifically, but I've done plenty of in-place migrations in my day job using Samsung's similar offering (Samsung Magician), and they've worked very well

Depending on how old the Windows install it, I'd consider @souls33k3r suggestion of a clean install, but with a good backup on external media as a fall back, a migration should go smoothly

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, souls33k3r said:

plug in the SSD and install a fresh Win10 on it.

CAUTION:  Backup all your personal data, files etc to external storage before proceeding.  Take a picture of your Win 10 activation key from your existing setup. You shouldn't need it but just in case.

 

I second this. Cloning or ghosting works well with identically configured hardware.  

However,  you are performing a pretty major hardware upgrade here.

My own approach would be to directly install the new drive as the master boot and do a clean re-install of Windows.

You should be able to create a bootable Win 10 install  USB from your existing setup. Do this first, before removing the old drive. 

Once you have your SSD up and running install you old drive as a slave drive. Copy your data over to the SSD and perhaps re-format the old drive.

 

 

 

 

[Dr_Ju_ju]

Before swapping anything, make a "system restore" backup using something like Macrium Reflect, preferably to an external disk, whether directly or network attached. This will backup all the system files and system state, the user data files and applications. 

Then use the in-built windows tools to create a bootable, restore USB drive. Doing this means you don't need to re-enter license keys etc...

After you've checked that the backups are ok., only then do you swap the hard drives, but put the old drive, safely, to one side, in case you need to replace it.

Then you can use the USB you created to re-install windows onto the SSD.

Another way to achieve the same thing is to clone the old disk to the new, but ideally that would require the new disk to be the same size or greater than the old.

 

[Yawning Angel]

If you log in with a Microsoft Live account rather than a local user, they allow you to upload your licence profile, so on reinstall you just log in and it activates, without needing the product key

32 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

Another way to achieve the same thing is to clone the old disk to the new, but ideally that would require the new disk to be the same size or greater than the old.

The migration software will deal with this, assuming the actual data fits on the new disk ?

[coatesg]

I'd agree - take a backup of data/profile content you want to preserve using the standard Win10 backup tools - cloning here is not straightforward as the HDD is bigger than the target SSD. 

 

* Fresh install on the SSD. 
* Reinstall programs.
* Restore backup content. 
* Check you have everything, and then install the HDD as a second HD, and format as needed. 

 

Note that, if your motherboard supports it, you could setup a small partition on the drive and run IRST (Intel Smart Response Technology) - this effectively uses the SSD as a transparent cache for the HDD - the hardware places commonly used files into the SSD cache and loads them from there, but also writes back to the HDD - it's effectively a DIY caching HDD, and is v quick - I use it on my desktop. The partition is small (64GB?) and so leaves the rest of the drive free for another partition for data (which is useful for data processing and other IO intensive tasks like scratch discs). This route would completely avoid having to do a reinstall, but it needs hardware support to do so. 

 

[coatesg]

BTW, for reliability, rather than speed though it does help on reads, I would be installing a same sized second hard drive and running the two as a mirrored RAID 1 array. Again, hardware support needed, but most motherboards support this. 

And take backups...

[RichM63]

I did this just before Xmas + added max Ram into my i7 AIO desktop machine.

As per others, the first thing I did was to copy the whole old HDD onto an external HDD.

I also wrote down on paper all and any software licence keys I had. The one exception was Corel, so I phoned them to explain with my client number and they immediately sent me a new activation email.

Then installed the hardware, installed W10 onto the new SSD.

Then into UEFI bios and set to boot from new SSD.

Left it like that for a week to see that all was OK.

Then formatted old HDD.

Created Documents/Pictures folder on old HDD.

Copied documents/pictures from external drive onto old HDD.

Changed destination path on new SSD for documents/pictures to old HDD (now Data E).

So the new SSD has the OS plus my programs, the old HDD has documents/pictures.

Running heavy photographic programs is now miles faster.

[Thalestris24]

Hi Peter

I heard my name mentioned! I thing I'd echo what others have said re backing up first (just in case something goes wrong...) plus make sure you have a Microsoft Account. One thing - you can't clone a 1Tb drive to a 500GB drive - 2 into 1 won't go! What you can do is clone a partition from the 1Tb drive providing it uses less (or exactly equal to) the capacity of the ssd (or second hdd). In order to clone a partition you need software that facilitates that. Easeus does a version which will clone a partition - I'm not familiar with the Acronis software that's been mentioned.

Before you do anything, though, double check that your motherboard supports the kind of drive you have for installation and booting. I found with my old Z68 chipset that the only option to use a ssd is to get a sata 3 2.5" ssd. The motherboard doesn't directly support booting from the newer, faster NVMe M.2 drives or pcie drives. I could, in theory, fit one via the pcie bus but only as a secondary (data) drive. There seems to be little to be gained from that. I also wouldn't fit an internal ssd just for the purposes of reliability. It's cheaper and easier to a) backup to an external hdd (or ssd) and b) you can easily clone your boot drive to another 1Tb hdd if you think the current one's getting old, or is on the wane.

As yet, I've not made any definite decisions about fitting ssds to either of my desktops. I've put that off until the end of March (though, thinking about it, maybe I should do something before Brexit!).

Louise

[ejp1684]

I changed my HDD for an SSD on my Toshiba laptop about a year ago. The SSD was from Crucial, and I just followed the advice they gave on their website. All went smoothly, so I'd take a look at their website and check out their help pages.

https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/ssd-install

Eric.

[Macavity]

Frustrated that I forgot to "document" what I used for System Disk cloning! ?
But it now looks VERY like I used "Minitool": https://www.partitionwizard.com/
The Wizard for migrating the OS from HD to SSD worked for me! But to be fair
I have a significant amount of un/wanted experience with PC installation. lol ?

Most of the potential issues have been ably addressed above? ?

I would only add that: My Desktop PC case is small, so there are only TWO
standard HD bays available. I left the SSD to dangle while I cloned the HD! ?

I bought a *two* SSD to HD caddy (+ useful cables) which I found "good":
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B015MSJ1DG/
Once I was confident everything was working this replaced the original HD.
It has an extra space for another SSD (Considering RAID 0/1 sets maybe?)
There are a lot of other CADDY solutions e.g. for redundant DVD slots etc.

P.S. I do AIM to reinstall the OS from scratch! But since my reliance on writing
things down is clearly suspect, I found a free LISTER  utility (-> text file) for all
Software I have installed on the Boot Disk. As noted above you probably *do*
want to check... in case you "paid Good Money" for SW licenses! ?

[stash_old]

34 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

you can't clone a 1Tb drive to a 500GB drive - 2 into 1 won't go

Wrong yes you can - So long as the free space in the used partition is lower than the destination SSD - no point really putting in a SSD in that doesn't have any free space after copying.  Most decent "cloning" software will also resize (even down size) partitions.

If you make an image backup (again most decent cloning software will allow you to do this) of your HDD before doing anything then you can always recreate the HDD should things go wrong - being nervous if fine just take it slowlly ?

I normally take a note of what drives are called (Make not drive letter) as this can help stop confusion on doing cloning - doesn't help if the drives are identical LOL

perhaps this will help https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/clone-larger-hdd-to-smaller-ssd.html

 

p.s. it doesn't apply to your (PETERCPC) desktop cloning but if you have a laptop with a DVD you can get replacement caddies which replace the DVD and allow you to have an extra  ssd or hdd. Not many today come with internal DVD ?

[Thalestris24]

2 minutes ago, stash_old said:

Wrong yes you can - So long as the free space in the used partition is lower than the destination SSD - no point really pointing in a SSD in that doesn't have any free space after copying.  Most decent "cloning" software will also resize (even down size) partitions.

If you make an image backup (again most decent cloning software will allow you to do this) of your HDD before doing anything then you can always recreate the HDD should things go wrong - being nervous if fine just take it slowlly ?

I normally take a note of what drives are called (Make not drive letter) as this can help stop confusion on doing cloning - doesn't help if the drives are identical LOL

perhaps this will help https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/clone-larger-hdd-to-smaller-ssd.html

True! Apologies! I see Peter actually has plenty of room to spare and he can copy off all his data files to a suitable backup drive first anyway!

Louise

[PeterCPC]

Wow. Lot's of good advice here. The SSD arrived today but I am waiting for the SATA data cable before I can install. I have downloaded the Acronis cloning software with the instructions so I will be studying that first. I don't understand all of it but it gives me some good pointers. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks to all.

Peter

 

[Thalestris24]

Have fun! Don't forget - copying hundreds of GB of data from/between hdds can take some time  

Louise

[stash_old]

4 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

but I am waiting for the SATA data cable

Hope that includes power cable for sata - if required- dont forget this motley bunch are always here to ask - better ask if unsure then :@+_   ?

[PeterCPC]

The data cable finally arrived today and I had the new SSD drive installed in about 15 minutes. There was a bracket in the desktop but no screws so I used some SCT collimation screws that I had laying around which were the correct size.

Found out that the firmware was already up to date.

Launched Acronis and found out that using "automatic" setting would not work so did it manually. Got a few error messages about not being able to read files from disk but told it to ignore. It successfully cloned the disk in about 1.5 hours. I then tried booting from UFI but, although it booted ok, the original HDD was nowhere to be seen. So I powered down and disconnected the HDD and booted again and the new SSD was showing as the C Drive. Powered down again and reconnected the HDD and now it shows as E Drive.

The only thing that I have noticed is that the new SSD is showing 245GB used whereas the old HDD was 255GB so 10GB seems to have gone awol somehow. Anyway it all seems to work ok but I am not going to touch the old HDD for a week or more just in case.

Peter

[Guest]

Could be the difference in formatting standard. The HDD would probably be formatted to FAT64. SSD's would have to emulate that somehow.  Also, maybe the old HDD had a recovery partition that was not copied over. Wouldn't contain any user data anyway. But well done getting this far.  Can be a stressful job !

 

[PeterCPC]

@RichM63Thought that I would ask you as you did this recently.

Just a thought but is there any reason why I can't leave Windows 10 on both drives?

Peter

[RichM63]

@PeterCPC , I can't see any reason why you can't. You will end up wasting space on the old drive.

I left the OS on both drives for a week or so until I was sure that the machine was booting and working OK from the new drive. I also made sure that I could reinstall all my software onto the new drive and that it was working.

Placed the new drive at the top of the boot list in UEFI/Bios.

Drives: OS C (new SSD), OS D (old drive now empty partition), Data E (old drive now storage), F (unused), Data G, External Drive for backup

I agree that starting from scratch is a PITA, but so is buying a new PC.

I set my head into gear before wiping the old drive, but I wanted to create the fastest machine that I could afford and clean out all the legacy rubbish that hides away.

One bit of FREE software that you might like is WinDirStat it is really handy for looking at what is going on inside.

Rich