Moving from one nvme drive to another

FeFiDoh · 11 Mar 2019 at 20:10

Hi all,
I currently have a 500gb nvme drive that is my OS drive. I have a 1tb nvme drive on the way that I want to replace my current 500gb one with.

I only have 1 m2 slot on my motherboard so I can't have both plugged in at the same time unfortunately. With that in mind, what is the easiest way for me to move drives without having to reinstall everything from scratch?

I took a quick look at the Samsung data migration tool but that doesn't seem to fit my needs so could do with other suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

Mysterae_ · 11 Mar 2019 at 21:35

The only way I can think of is to get a PCIE NVMe adaptor card, if you have a free PCIE slot in your motherboard. The adaptors aren't expensive, less that £15 usually. Can't link due to being a competitor.

mikeo · 11 Mar 2019 at 21:46

Here you go: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/akasa-m.2-ssd-to-pcie-adapter-card-cc-008-ak.html

Got one myself with an older SM951 NVMe running in it. Works just fine.

AthlonXP1800 · 12 Mar 2019 at 03:11

If you don't have a free PCIE slot then you will need to buy m.2 SSD to USB adapter.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Akasa External USB 3.1 M.2 SSD Aluminum Enclosure - Black= £26.99

Total: £26.99 (includes shipping: £0.00)

FeFiDoh · 12 Mar 2019 at 07:22

I think the 951 is what I have, maybe 950? Don't remember at minute.

Does anyone have experience with Macrium Reflect? Come across it elsewhere. It seems I can make an image of my disk on my other drive, swap out nvmes and then use a bootable USB that Macrium will also create to reinstall the image.

Minstadave · 12 Mar 2019 at 07:33

Yeah Macrium will do the job fine.

Clone your current OS to an empty SATA drive, switch the NVME and clone back.

FeFiDoh · 12 Mar 2019 at 08:43

It creates an image file right, iso? Do I need an empty drive to put it on or can I use current one anyway?

Minstadave · 12 Mar 2019 at 09:29

FeFiDoh said:
It creates an image file right, iso? Do I need an empty drive to put it on or can I use current one anyway?

Macrium reflect does direct drive to drive cloning, not sure about drive imaging. Macrium does do that but not sure about if the free version does it.

FeFiDoh · 12 Mar 2019 at 21:35

Hi,
For what it is worth Macrium did exactly what I needed it to. I made an image on my other 4tb drive which took around 30 mins for a 500gb NVME which had around 100gb space left.
It then took another 30 minutes to restore it to my new NVME drive.

I had to sort the boot manager out as it kept giving me errors when loading but fixed this with Macrium anyway.
Had to sort the partitions out which I used free version of Partition Wizard to do so.