Migrating to SSD?

[teddyv]

Hi Folks,

I currently have a new build 2500k/Asus P8Z68V-LX/16g Vengeance Ram with a WD 640g Blue main drive and a new WD 640g Black on the shelf from a Newegg sale a while back I never got around to installing.

I want to take advantage of the great prices on SSDs, especially the 120g on sale at the Egg this weekend, but am having issues trying to figure out how to migrate things. Ultimately I would like to use the Black as a data drive and the SSD as a system drive. Could it be as simple as installing the Black, changing "My Documents" to the Black and letting Windows move everything, then cloning the Blue main drive to the SSD and I guess realigning it?

This article provided I think good info but had a lot of copy and deleting:
http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid+state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows

Any thoughts? Ultimately I would like to then use the old Blue drive as a data backup for the now data drive Black, maybe find a light program I could occaionally run to sync the data drive to the backup drive or just occasionally clone it.

 

[Hellhammer]

You should be able to simply move the data to the Black drive, then delete from the Blue drive and then clone the Blue drive to the SSD. You can then relocate the My Documents folder to be on another drive, so if you save something there is goes to the Blue drive and not the SSD.

That's basically what I have done. Windows' built-in backup tool has also been sufficient for me.

Take care,
Kristian Vättö
SSD editor for AnandTech

 

[Shmee]

In my opinion fresh installs are best when going from HDD to SSD, but you can check alignment with tools like AS SSD. Which SSD were you considering?

Wish you luck!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I followed the directions here. More or less.

http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid+state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows

Used EaseUS to clone the data, then GParted to align the partition. (Move right 2MB, then left 1MB.)

After aligning the partition, you usually have to do the following from the recovery console. (Boot from install disk)

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec/fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd.

I had to clone twice. The first didn't take for some reason - the above commands errored out and the windows installation wasn't "live," even though all the data was there. I assume it was something the GParted did, since it booted fine before I aligned it. The alignment process rendered the bootup stuff unrepairable with either the startup repair utility or the bootrec.exe commands.

 

[Elixer]

I followed the directions here. More or less.

http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid+state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows

Used EaseUS to clone the data, then GParted to align the partition. (Move right 2MB, then left 1MB.)

After aligning the partition, you usually have to do the following from the recovery console. (Boot from install disk)



I had to clone twice. The first didn't take for some reason - the above commands errored out and the windows installation wasn't "live," even though all the data was there. I assume it was something the GParted did, since it booted fine before I aligned it. The alignment process rendered the bootup stuff unrepairable with either the startup repair utility or the bootrec.exe commands.

Curious, why didn't you just create a empty 1MB partition at the beginning, then clone the HD to SSD on the empty partition ?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Curious, why didn't you just create a empty 1MB partition at the beginning, then clone the HD to SSD on the empty partition ?

Flippant answer: I was drunk off my ass, it was a long weekend, and I wasn't up to much beyond following directions.

Less flippant answer: The "copy disk" function in the cloning software recommended by the lifehacker page copied the disk, not individual partitions. I could have used the copy partition command instead, but after the first failed attempt, I didn't want to learn anything else the hard way.

I did check out two other (free) cloning programs: one didn't do something I thought was important (although I don't remember what), and the other showed my individual RAID drives as sources instead of the RAID volume I was trying to clone.

I'm also not sure exactly when during the whole process I learned about the 1MB partition thing. It might have been after.

 

[tweakboy]

Nah that is soo 3 years ago, to put your OS on it and nothing else,, lol thats when SSD were 60GB. with 256GB and 512GB , you can put your whole comp, OS , apps , data If you grab the 512GB for sure you can have everything on that drive, and maybe put movies in the black drive... gl

 

[hhhd1]

I do not know why people still recommend moving everythng to a non-ssd storage, like my documents and pagefile .. what is the point of having an ssd then ?

After few months of regular usage, you can analyze the smart values, and if there is seem to be a fast degrading in life, then start worrying about stuff like that.

what needs to be done:
1. disable defrag.
2. verify alignment.
3. power options: disable turn off harddisk when plugged in (to allow garbage collection).
4. update firmware and drivers.
5. optionally leave about 7% or less as unpartitioned unallocated space for over provisioning. this is not required for all manufacturers.
6. make sure trim is enabled
> fsutil.exe behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
If TRIM is running, the system will reply with:
> DisableDeleteNotify=0

 

[kmmatney]

Since you have Western Digital drives, you can download the western digital version of Acronis - that works great for cloning to SSD (used it many times). You can get the WD Acronis edition by following these steps:

Go to the WD main website site, and then go to “Support” and then “Downloads”. Then select ”SATA and SAS” drives, and then pick “WD Digital Caviar Black”.

This will give you a list of downloads, include acronis. It will work with any WD drive, and will even work with non WD drives if you just have a single WD drive plugged in externally. In some cases, I was aligned properly after the cloning, and didn't need to use GParted.