Upgrade to NVME.

willhub · 2 Oct 2018 at 13:14

Hello.

Thinking next pay day if I get a bonus to upgrade from a 256GB M2 to a 512GB NVME drive with my GE72MVR 7RG Laptop.

I assume I can plop any NVME in? Also is it possible to move across this installation of Windows so I don't have to start from scratch somehow?

mattyfez · 2 Oct 2018 at 20:38

Should be able to. Cloning the drive might be awkward though unless you have an external drive..

andy_mk3 · 2 Oct 2018 at 20:52

Yes your laptop will support NVMe drives, but don't always assume M.2=NVMe support as it doesn't

If it's anything like my MSI GE62, it has 3 M.2 slots and only one of them supports NVMe.

Macrium Reflect can clone your drive.

willhub · 2 Oct 2018 at 22:49

Thinking in would I need an external enclosure, my laptop only has one slot by the looks of it (check image .). https://i.imgur.com/oBGhTL5.jpg

mattyfez · 4 Oct 2018 at 08:41

Yeh or a clean install might be easiest.

I'm thinking to use a clone, you'd have to clone to an external drive, then fit the new drive and clone your clone back to the new system drive?

You can get m.2 external USB enclosures which would make it slightly more straight forward but it's extra expense if you already have an external HDD.

That said if you do get a USB m. 2 enclosure you could then put your old m.2 drive in it afterwards ... Although using an m.2 drive over USB as an external drive kinda defeats the purpose of the fast m.2 drive.

Maundie · 4 Oct 2018 at 11:51

I always when replacing system drives do a full clean install, gets rid of some of the chaff you accumulate over the years, as it has a secondary drive can't you save the files required to that and do a complete clean install onto your new NVMe drive, it is really quick to install the OS (It took my desktop 12 minutes to install Windows 10 onto my new NVMe drive) the time is taken re-installing apps etc.

willhub · 4 Oct 2018 at 11:52

I don't mind doing a re-install, but what I HATE with a passion is re-installing as games, 18 of them, nightmare!

Duke · 7 Oct 2018 at 21:28

Pretty sure you can just backup Steam and others like it, unless you means things not using those platforms? Easier to keep on a separate partition

BluD · 8 Oct 2018 at 15:52

Yeah, just drag your C:\users\ folder over to your HDD, then copy it back over after you've installed everything onto your SSD so it saves all your configs and save files for all your programs and games.

I reinstalled recently onto a new drive and only had to reinstall my game launchers and not the games as theyre all installed on the other drive. There are a few games that dont use launchers and i usually use the trick where you start installing the game to a new folder, then stop the install and then write over it with the old game folder. When you start the installer again it picks up the files and doesnt try to install them again.

Minstadave · 17 Oct 2018 at 08:53

I haven't reinstalled in years through multiple mobo changes and drive upgrades. Win 10 seems to cope fine with cloning.