Upgrading SSD cba to re-install

Born_2_Kill_83 · 28 Oct 2015 at 10:41

I want to upgrade my trusty 120gb Samsung SSD but I don't fancy re-installing the OS again as I only did it a month or so ago. Is there a way to swap everything on my current SSD to a new one, there's only basically 20/30gb of OS and a few programmes on there atm, all my files are on my 1TB HD. Can this be done without creating any errors?

ED209 · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:11

you can use the samsung migration software which you can download from their site or you can follow this guide to clone the drive from one to another with free software

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18576917

bledd · 28 Oct 2015 at 11:22

Macrium Reflect Free

Create a boot CD, use the clone option. Remove old SSD, boot into Windows.

KIA · 28 Oct 2015 at 18:46

Don't forget to tell Macrium to use 100% of the space on the new drive.

Richdog · 30 Oct 2015 at 06:14

Will be doing this with a 1TB SSD soon too, will be interested to see how painless it turns out for you!

megapleb · 1 Nov 2015 at 00:28

I've used Macrium Reflect Free twice now to clone a boot drive when upgrading (256GB -> 512GB ->1TB SSD). It's a little confusing when you are setting up the clone of the drive, but if you mess it up, you can always try again as you'll still have your old boot drive as a backup.

ZeroG · 1 Nov 2015 at 16:24

I cloned my OS from a 120GB SSD to a 500GB SSD and had nothing but trouble with it so in the end I just went for the re-install. It doesn't really take all that long to install from scratch these days.

wazza300 · 1 Nov 2015 at 17:36

Cloning should be easy and straight forward,never had a clone go wrong

Richdog · 2 Nov 2015 at 06:56

ZeroG said:
I cloned my OS from a 120GB SSD to a 500GB SSD and had nothing but trouble with it so in the end I just went for the re-install. It doesn't really take all that long to install from scratch these days.

Really, what trouble did you have? Plenty of people manage to do it without any issues?

Re-installing from scratch is a pain and often takes hours to get things back to the way they were, and not everyone wants to do that.

ZeroG · 2 Nov 2015 at 20:04

I had a constant random blue screen on bootup which I couldn't fix, so ended up having to re-install Windows anyway. I spent weeks trying to fix it before giving up, which by then my new mobo etc had arrived so it was a new install anyway.

Richdog · 2 Nov 2015 at 20:11

OK good to know, cheers!

I'm now in the process of cloning my 1TB Samsung 850 Evo... only thing is that while I could find my Sharkoon HD dock, I couldn't find my chuffing USB cable that came with it, so using my printer one instead. No idea if that is slowing throughput or not on the USB3.0 port but it's taken 2 hours to do 250 GB, with another 250GB to go! :eek:

ED209 · 2 Nov 2015 at 20:36

even though its connected to USB 3 the dock and cable are only capable of USB 2 speeds

wazza300 · 2 Nov 2015 at 20:39

ZeroG said:
I had a constant random blue screen on bootup which I couldn't fix, so ended up having to re-install Windows anyway. I spent weeks trying to fix it before giving up, which by then my new mobo etc had arrived so it was a new install anyway.

did you come/clone from x58 board?

Richdog · 2 Nov 2015 at 20:42

ED209 said:
even though its connected to USB 3 the dock and cable are only capable of USB 2 speeds

No the dock is certainly USB 3.0, the only thing I wasn't sure about making a difference or not was the cable, and I got my answer from the transfer speeds.

ZeroG · 2 Nov 2015 at 21:03

wazza300 said:
did you come/clone from x58 board?

No I was on an i5 2500k - it was only the SSD that changed initially from a 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 to a 500GB Samsung 840 Evo.

Richdog · 2 Nov 2015 at 22:37

Well, my SSD is in after 4.5 hours of cloning... lol. Definitely a huge speed increase, and I enabled 10% OP with Magician too to be on the safe side. Can't believe it's taken me so long to get an SSD, but glad I got a large and decent one.

RFIT -

Benchmark, speeds seem decent!

Vertigo · 9 Nov 2015 at 11:28

ZeroG said:
I cloned my OS from a 120GB SSD to a 500GB SSD and had nothing but trouble with it so in the end I just went for the re-install. It doesn't really take all that long to install from scratch these days.

Installing the OS takes no time at all. Sorting everything else, such as all the drivers, settings, re-installing apps and so forth, is the real pain which takes far longer.

I always recommend a regular backup system which can restore bare metal images as well as individual files, not only for the peace of mind but also because it makes disaster recovery or migrating to a new drive ridiculously simple.

Richdog · 9 Nov 2015 at 12:06

Upgraded to Windows 10 too on Friday night and it absolutely flies along!

Draeger · 9 Nov 2015 at 19:37

Looking at doing this as well at some point soon to move from my 60Gb OCZ Agility 3 to a Samsung Evo. I used Macrium Reflect before a while back when I first got this Agility 3 and it worked a treat.

However what I can't recall is this - when you guys say it will 'clone' an entire SSD, does that include everything on the drive? I know that sounds like a daft question but what I mean is will it clone everything including MS Office, CS6 and most importantly, Outlook with all my email?

Ta.

wazza300 · 9 Nov 2015 at 19:39

your email is stored on ms servers

but yeah it will be an exact bootable copy of your original drive,inc all the data that was on it(everything that was on your original install will be on your newly cloned drive)