Cloning laptop drive to new SSD

JJimmyJ · 20 Dec 2011 at 15:08

Hello all

Been googling and searching for answers to this, but it looks like it's too long-winded a question.
I'm about to purchase a new SSD for my laptop. I want to clone the old drive, but don't currently have an enclosure for it.
Is it possible to add all the drives into my desktop so my laptop drive would show as D: drive and the new SSD as E: drive then clone D to E??
Hope that makes some sense.

Thanks

Paul11 · 20 Dec 2011 at 15:11

can you do a fresh install, much better

panyan · 20 Dec 2011 at 15:14

Paul11 said:
can you do a fresh install, much better

+1

windows has different settings for ssd's and hdd's which it may not set itself up for if you clone a hdd onto an ssd

JJimmyJ · 20 Dec 2011 at 15:17

Well I have the disks so I could easily do a fresh install. I just thought it was wise to minimise the writes to an SSD (or so I've read), so wanted to try an avoid all the windows updates, office updates, instaling of a few games etc etc.
If it won't have too many adverse affects then I'm happy to just do a fresh one

Thanks

skyripper · 20 Dec 2011 at 15:26

If you want to clone, use download Acronis which even takes care of alignment issues for you. Put both old and new drive in your desktop, boot off your normal desktop drive, and clone away...

Stick new drive in laptop, disable hibernation, turn off Indexing and run the Windows Experience Index benchmarks.

Paul11 · 20 Dec 2011 at 15:28

you dont need to worry that much about not writing to it, just use it as a drive and dont drive yourself mad

it has many many read/writes in its lifetime, i cant imagine using it as a normal drive will make any difference.

JJimmyJ · 20 Dec 2011 at 15:48

Thanks all. Good to know I have options. I may just go the cloning route now I know I can use my desktop to do it.
I see Acronis has a 30 day trial. Presumably I can just install it, run my clone then remove? Does it leave any nasty reg entries?

Cyber-Mav · 20 Dec 2011 at 18:02

built 2 new lappys recently and i used a 160gb mechanical disk to install the os to, with all apps, updates, etc, the done tweaks like lock pagefile size to 128mb, disable hibernation etc and the laptop was ready, i defragged the drive then i cloned it to the ssd.

this leaves the ssd with just a single large file sequential write being made to it. which is very little wear on the drive. also leaves the data on the ssd defragmented, probably doesnt help since ssd's are not wounded by fragmentation but it leaves less blocks used due to random writes from os and app installs with updates etc.

i use this method for doing all future ssd builds.

skyripper · 20 Dec 2011 at 18:06

JJimmyJ said:
Thanks all. Good to know I have options. I may just go the cloning route now I know I can use my desktop to do it.
I see Acronis has a 30 day trial. Presumably I can just install it, run my clone then remove? Does it leave any nasty reg entries?

Dunno, never used it! I used the manual PartED method, but I've seen Acronis posted about numerous times on here.

Paul11 · 20 Dec 2011 at 19:41

Cyber-Mav said:
built 2 new lappys recently and i used a 160gb mechanical disk to install the os to, with all apps, updates, etc, the done tweaks like lock pagefile size to 128mb, disable hibernation etc and the laptop was ready, i defragged the drive then i cloned it to the ssd.

this leaves the ssd with just a single large file sequential write being made to it. which is very little wear on the drive. also leaves the data on the ssd defragmented, probably doesnt help since ssd's are not wounded by fragmentation but it leaves less blocks used due to random writes from os and app installs with updates etc.

i use this method for doing all future ssd builds.

sounds like a lot of hassle just to avoid a few writes which probably wouldnt make any difference