Going from HDD to SSD

edk99

n00b
Joined
Jan 27, 2009
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9
Quick question. I just bought a Intel x-25m 160gb sdd drive to use as my OS drive.

I have a full backup of my current Win7 install of my HDD on my Windows Home Server. Can I just do a restore from WHS to the new SSD drive or should I just do a fresh Win7 install? I already have my motherboard in AHCI mode.

Is there any downside to doing a restore? I will probably need to disable defrag on the new drive since it is turned on in the current OS HDD drive.

Thanks!

Ed
 
I would do a new install.
Start fresh, enjoy the auto-config benefits, etc.
 
just wondering, how reliable is using SSD as OS drive?

apparently if setup properly its certainly no worse than a normal drive. will certainly be alot faster. im hoping to install mine asap.
 
You can restore the image of your OS onto the SSD, you just have to be careful of partition alignment. I think DriveImageXML and NortonGhost are two programs that are alignment aware and will load the image in the correct alignment. Windows also has a backup tool, but it's restrictive on the size of the drives you want to load the image onto.

I personally tried this, and it was a huge headache. I ended up just doing a clean install.
 
Sorry to jump on your thread, but I was going to post the same thing. I'm actually restoring to my new SSD as I type this. I just upgraded from XP to Win 7 a couple of weeks ago. I had some pretty annoying issues. Nothing earth shattering, but annoying none the less. I finally got everything working right a couple of days ago. Then I got a good deal on a SSD. I'd really rather not go through it all again. Is there any way to tell if things are set up properly for the SSD once it's running. Would it help if I reinstalled Win 7 on top of my old installation on the SSD.

On a side note. Restoring a 64-bit OS from WHS is a pain in the ass. I've done it twice now and each time it won't work with the network drivers that WHS sets aside for the restore. Each time I've had to go out and get the 32-bit drivers and throw them on the flash drive to make it work. I would hope this is fixed with WHSv2 since it's 64-bit. Thanks for letting me rant and any advice you can give.
 
I would just reinstall everything and not take any chances of screwing up the alignment. Plus it's fun you'll be impressed how fast everything goes :)
 
ive seen people restore from hd to ssd fine, i wonder if i make a true image of the ssd if i can restore it if needed, i agree its a pain to install all the drivers etc setup wifi etc but doesnt take more than 30 mins and doesnt need to be done that often, I pictured ssd as more reliable than hd since it will have less chance of over heating and dieing? not really sure but i can always hope.
 
I'm running on the SSD right now. So far I'm not real impressed. Some things open up fast, but my startup doesn't seem any faster. I'll give it a few days, if I don't see any improvement I'll just follow the band wagon and reinstall.
 
My drive came with Acronis True Image HD. I wonder if it would align things properly if I used it. I already changed the size of my boot partition so it would be small enough to use WHS restore. I'd have to transfer off all the stuff on my storage partition then delete it. Otherwise Acronis won't work. Any thoughts on this.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I just did a fresh install of win7 in January and have all the programs I installed on a separate hard drive or CD So I'm now leaning towards just doing a fresh install.

After reading some other articles about this, this will be the best route so Win7 detects the SSD drive on install and disables or enables the appropriate features.

I'm also reading that some people suggest to create an unused partition. So on a 160gb drive create a 25gb partition that you will never use so you would never fill up the drive and cause it to slow down. I'm not sure I will do this as my C drive right now is around 60gb and I save all my documents, music and whatever else to other hard drives. So is it will wise or recommended to create this unused partition?
 
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