Program to image drive to SSD?

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msbbc833

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
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Hi yall
I am copying my C: drive contents to a new SSD. What is the best free software to do this with?
 
I use Clonezilla all the time for HDDs. Quick and easy. I assume it works the same for SSDs.
 
msbbc833 said:
Hi yall
I am copying my C: drive contents to a new SSD. What is the best free software to do this with?
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Just be aware that if your upgrading from a platter drive to a solid state drive, that yes you can image it over, but its not ideal at all. The partition will not be aligned correctly and Windows will need to be tweaked afterwards to give you some of the settings you would get with a clean install on SSD. The partition alignment is the bigger one though.
 
Also if you have Windows 7, just go to Start > Search and type "backup". Windows 7 has a built-in disk imaging system. Just used it for the first time tonight and it worked perfectly. Imaged the drive, wiped it, re-imaged it and everything was running no problem.
 
I thought about this when i moved to SSD and so many people warned me off of the idea because of partition alignment. So i installed from scratch and all was good, took next to no time to set up again and i'm glad i did it, it's always good to start from scratch now and then.
 
The latest version of Acronis True Image handles alignment properly. As far as simple solutions go, that appears to be your only option.
The alignment can make a huge impact on performance.
 
The built-in Win 7 backup will also align properly when restoring to an SSD, even if the image is from a platter drive.
 
Limahl said:
I'm guessing he'd still need to manually turn off the things a clean install usually disables by default though?

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

Can plug his numbers in here once he's up and running to verify the alignment is good.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/157
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I didn't have to. The Microsoft blog post kind of implies that those settings are done dynamically, and not on initial install.
 
If the disk is already aligned, just shrink partition with disk management and let clonezilla do the rest.
 
OldMX said:
If the disk is already aligned, just shrink partition with disk management and let clonezilla do the rest.
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The problem you run into is if you can't shrink the partition for some reason. I ended up having to image my original drive, install that on a second drive, then shrink that partition, then image it to the SSD. Not sure why it wouldn't let me shrink the original, but it worked in the end.
 
I believe Paragon sells software that will fix alignment without having to do a re-install. I must have lucked out when I ghosted an XP install to a new Intel x-25m G2 80GB SSD and my partition alignment is correct.
 
I believe Paragon sells software that will fix alignment without having to do a re-install.
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Yep.

They gave it away for awhile and that's when I got my copy.
 
Old Hippie said:
Looks like that's the 2009 Acronis and I'm pretty sure it doesn't keep alignment.
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I ended up with perfect alignment on my Torqx when I used it to move an image over that was on a Caviar Blue drive. I ended up doing this twice(firmware upgrade erased data) and both times it worked.
 
I used Acronis. Got the free trial. I set a restore point, then installed it, I then created an image and restored it to the SSD. After doing that, I restored the system to before I installed Acronis.

That user experience (even though I didn't buy it), prompted me to purchase a number of licenses for Acronis for work.
 
cditty said:
I used Acronis. Got the free trial. I set a restore point, then installed it, I then created an image and restored it to the SSD. After doing that, I restored the system to before I installed Acronis.

That user experience (even though I didn't buy it), prompted me to purchase a number of licenses for Acronis for work.
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Why bother restoring the system to the pre-Acronis state? Just don't want Acronis installed?
 
anyone know if ghost will align drives correctly? Currently I have been creating a regular hard drive image and an SSD Hard Drive image. This would save me BOATLOADS of time if if ghost does indeed do this as well.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
I ended up with perfect alignment on my Torqx when I used it to move an image over that was on a Caviar Blue drive. I ended up doing this twice(firmware upgrade erased data) and both times it worked.
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Cool! That's good to know.

I'm almost positive Acronis 2009 doesn't correctly align disks from a restored backup but that one must not be the same.

IDK if 2009s "Clone" function would keep alignment.
 
Old Hippie said:
Last time I heard it didn't.

PSSSS....I Fucked-up again! :D

Looks like Ghost will keep alignment.
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Thing is I want the functionality of Acronis. I don't want to have to create 2 images of every machine we buy. Right now I have to create like 5 different images (different software packages) for each model of machine we purchase, then another 5 images for the same computer but with an SSD... This is painful and very time consuming. Not to mention it is double the overhead maintenance (software package changes I need to re-create the images).
 
FWIW, in my testing Acronis 2011 and v11 do not keep partition alignment beyond the start of the first partition. Subsequent partitions (and the end of the first) are not aligned. Miray HDclone also does not maintain alignment beyond the start of the first partition (just like Acronis). Since Windows 7 does not install itself to the first partition when installing to a clean unpartitioned drive this is a problem (due to Windows 7's creation of the 100MB system reserved partition). Windows 7 aligns partitions (both start & end) to fall on 1MiB boundaries. This is a very good alignment for SSDs. Unfortunately, Acronis and Miray both screw this up even with doing a disk to disk clone operation (unless set to do a 1:1 RAW copy which isn't an option if the target drive is smaller).

What I've found actually works is using a Gparted live CD to reduce the size of your drive's partitions so the amount of partitioned space on the HD is less than or equal to the size of your SSD. Gparted can align partitions (both start & end) to 1MiB boundaries. Once you've done that, use Clonezilla to do a disk to disk clone operation. Clonezilla will make an exact mirror of your HD's partitions on the SSD keeping the identical alignment for all partitions (not just the start of the first one) and it's not doing a 1:1 RAW copy either, so it's a lot faster.
 
Stereodude said:
FWIW, in my testing Acronis 2011 and v11 do not keep partition alignment beyond the start of the first partition. Subsequent partitions (and the end of the first) are not aligned. Miray HDclone also does not maintain alignment beyond the start of the first partition (just like Acronis). Since Windows 7 does not install itself to the first partition when installing to a clean unpartitioned drive this is a problem (due to Windows 7's creation of the 100MB system reserved partition). Windows 7 aligns partitions (both start & end) to fall on 1MiB boundaries. This is a very good alignment for SSDs. Unfortunately, Acronis and Miray both screw this up even with doing a disk to disk clone operation (unless set to do a 1:1 RAW copy which isn't an option if the target drive is smaller).
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That's some great indepth info!

When using Acronis did it misalign when using the "partition" or "disc" backup modes, or both?

I've run w7 without that system reserved partition. AFAIK it's no big deal to not use it.
 
Old Hippie said:
When using Acronis did it misalign when using the "partition" or "disc" backup modes, or both?
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Based on my experience, it was both. In general I found 2011 to be pretty much unusable. One of the things I tried was to restore multiple partitions to a single disc one at time by controlling the unallocated area. Unfortunately, the size of the partition and the unallocated area did not change together like it should have so it was basically impossible since you couldn't get the partition the right size while having the proper amount of unused disc after it. So using 2011 to restore partitions one at time from a disc backup pretty much dead.

Another complaint I had with both versions is they won't leave partition sizing alone. If you want to clone 80GB of partitions to a 120GB drive it's going to grow both partitions without letting you select the option of leaving them alone (and giving you unused space at the end of target drive).

On a different front, Miray would change partition sizes slightly (by a few MB in either direction) even when you told it to make no changes to the partitions (disc to disc clone mode). Actually, both version of Acronis did the same thing too (though it doesn't have a "make no changes" mode).
I've run w7 without that system reserved partition. AFAIK it's no big deal to not use it.
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I know, but if you do a clean install on an unpartitioned disk, you can't avoid it.
 
I know, but if you do a clean install on an unpartitioned disk, you can't avoid it.
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Not really....I just deleted the partition after it was made and formatted the whole disk over again. The small boot partition never reappeared and I installed without it.

It definately worked.

I do many back-ups and have used those images for reinstalls but mostly my images are to perserve current information that would be lost in a crash.

When it comes right down to it, I've always done complete reinstalls and only used the images till the complete reinstalls are ready.

A fresh install is great and even though it takes me @ 8hrs to do it right, it eliminates many little "quirks" I experienced when using reinstalled images.

You've definately played with Acronis extensively and have given some great info!

Thanks!
 
Stereodude said:
Ok, that process is not at all intuitive though. :eek:
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It's not intuitive, but it's not difficult (especially the method where you avoid creating the system reserved partition from within Windows setup). I have never cared for those "hidden" partitions, whether they be the one Windows 7 creates or the ones that Dell and other OEMs put on their hard disks. They can cause problems when cloning or imaging drives/partitions.

Personally, I think the easiest method is to connect your drive to a Windows 7 box and format it with Disk Management. This ensures correct alignment and prevents the creation of the 100MB system reserved partition when installing Windows. But if you can't do that, the methods that I linked to do work.
 
I am running on the SSD now that I copied from my HDD. How can I check the alignment? How can I make sure that ACHI is on?
 
And is this a good bench? Its a Corsair F120 Sandforce

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Hmm Windows Experience gives the SSD a 6.9. Thats pretty low right? I also checked and TRIM is enabled.
 
msbbc833 said:
I am running on the SSD now that I copied from my HDD. How can I check the alignment? How can I make sure that ACHI is on?
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AS-SSD will show the alignment. You can check whether AHCI is enabled in the BIOS.
 
Please elaborate. Where in the program does it state if the alignment is correct?
 
msbbc833 said:
Crap. It says 10300K - BAD
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A tool like Paragon Partition Manager should allow you to re-align the drive without having to re-install Windows. I haven't tried it myself since Acronis kept the alignment to my new drive, but I've seen it recommended.
 
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