Hey guys, I am upgrading a computer's OS drive from a 160GB to 400GB drive. Is there something out there that would create an identical copy of the 160GB drive onto the 400GB so I don't need to reinstall the OS and set up everything again? Thanks.
![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Clone OS drive onto another
- Thread starter coder_t2
- Start date
Joe Average
Ad Blocker - Banned
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2008
- Messages
- 15,459
Find the software for the 160 or the 400 (from the manufacturer) - that'll allow you to do the drive cloning/copying operation to move everything from the old drive to the new one. If for some strange unfathomable reason the manufacturer of either drive doesn't have such software (pretty unlikely), you can try CloneZilla, or DriveImage XML, or a host of other apps like Acronis True Image and others to get the task done.
Alrighty thanks. I looked on WD's website and they had a version of Acronis True Image on there. So I am going to use that and see how it goes. Now, time to keep an eye out for some nice deals on a 2TB drive. Seems like most of them are for 5400 rpm drives, but I'm hoping to snag a good deal on a 7200 rpm one.
Joe Average
Ad Blocker - Banned
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2008
- Messages
- 15,459
With True Image, you don't have to make an image of the source drive first then restore that image to the target drive; under the Tools and Options section of the app, there's a specific tool that will do a cloning job, drive to drive directly which is much faster than making the intermediary image (and needing someplace to store that since it can't be the source or the target, so that would require 3 drives in some respects).
You'll figure it out.
As for the big drive theory, most of the supersized ones are 5400 rpm because nobody should realistically be using them for OS drives - get a smaller much faster much higher performance drive like a VelociRaptor or an SSD (if you can afford one, of course) and use that for the OS and the apps you really need to get performance with (fast load times, etc). Then use the big drives for basic storage. Even high definition streaming - several movies at once - would barely touch what a 5400 rpm drive is capable of these days so...
You'll figure it out.
As for the big drive theory, most of the supersized ones are 5400 rpm because nobody should realistically be using them for OS drives - get a smaller much faster much higher performance drive like a VelociRaptor or an SSD (if you can afford one, of course) and use that for the OS and the apps you really need to get performance with (fast load times, etc). Then use the big drives for basic storage. Even high definition streaming - several movies at once - would barely touch what a 5400 rpm drive is capable of these days so...
Hmm. Multiple Streams is basically why I wanted to get the 7200rpm over the 5400rpm. This is all for my HTPC, and sometimes I worry the HDDs aren't fast enough if I am recording 2 tv shows, watching something, and transferring a file to it at the same time. Are you sure a 5400rpm should have no problem?
Joe Average
Ad Blocker - Banned
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2008
- Messages
- 15,459
Well, I meant from the viewing perspective, of course. Even a straight rip Blu-ray stream maxes out at basically 45-50 Mbps (that's Megabits per second, big "M" small "b") which translates to ~8MB/s (that's Megabytes per second, big "B"), so yeah, such a drive could handle a few of those from the reading perspective considering modern drives can handle 70MB/s sustained reads without many issues at all - that's at least 7 streams minimum.
Now, if you're writing two streams, it's going to be less since you're talking about compressed streams - if you're recording, your DVR or tuner card is obviously going to be doing real-time encoding, probably directly into h.264 format so that's going to cut down the necessary bits dramatically. You can record a full blown h.264 encoded stream from some DVR or tuner and it'll be well under 20 Mbps almost always, that's basically nothing to handle even for a 5400 rpm drive.
The only way to know for sure in all this is to simply get one of the drives and do testing of your own. My numbers are based on theory, and having built a few dozen HTPC setups for people over the past few years and it's never been a big issue. You could always get two drives and assign one for the recording and one for the watching also, multitask the entire system much better by assigning drives based on their specific purposes.
Lots of ways to maximize the performance all around...
Now, if you're writing two streams, it's going to be less since you're talking about compressed streams - if you're recording, your DVR or tuner card is obviously going to be doing real-time encoding, probably directly into h.264 format so that's going to cut down the necessary bits dramatically. You can record a full blown h.264 encoded stream from some DVR or tuner and it'll be well under 20 Mbps almost always, that's basically nothing to handle even for a 5400 rpm drive.
The only way to know for sure in all this is to simply get one of the drives and do testing of your own. My numbers are based on theory, and having built a few dozen HTPC setups for people over the past few years and it's never been a big issue. You could always get two drives and assign one for the recording and one for the watching also, multitask the entire system much better by assigning drives based on their specific purposes.
Lots of ways to maximize the performance all around...
Hmm, gotcha. Thanks a lot Joe. You did a really good a job of explaining, which is nice. You don't always get that in the forums. Well I'm sold on the 5400rpm drive then. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't selling myself short. Splitting up the work over drives is actually a pretty good idea. I was always thinking RAID whenever I thought of that, but I could just use one drive to do my backing up of files and other drive to record TV, since both drives will be fairly large now. No need for RAID necessarily. Thanks a lot.
Joe Average
Ad Blocker - Banned
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2008
- Messages
- 15,459
When dealing with multiple high definition streams, while the actual drives supplying the data are very important, realize the network itself comes into this also. While the drives can handle it almost without issue, if you're not on a Gigabit network, forget it. You'll easily saturate a Fast Ethernet connection (aka 100Mbps) with ~2 streams, and any more than that are gonna choke it fairly severely.
RAID is primarily only useful for its originally intended purpose: reliability and data protection aka redundancy. In terms of raw performance, "RAID 0" aka JABOD is designed and utilized best for raw video recording of full blown bitstreams and video editing. Nowadays, since almost all video recording for TV/HTPC purposes is always going to be an encoded stream (meaning the actual bitstreams are barely a dent in what the media is capable of handling, like ~20Mbps h.264 streams instead of 150Mbps raw uncompressed streams), the necessity of RAID of any kind doesn't really help much at all.
Setting up a system where the drives are assigned to specific roles and purposes, i.e. one drive for recording, one for playback/storage, etc, will tend to offer the best compromise and most efficient level of operation.
You'll easily saturate a Fast Ethernet connection (aka 100Mbps) with ~2 streams, and any more than that are gonna choke it fairly severely.RAID is primarily only useful for its originally intended purpose: reliability and data protection aka redundancy. In terms of raw performance, "RAID 0" aka JABOD is designed and utilized best for raw video recording of full blown bitstreams and video editing. Nowadays, since almost all video recording for TV/HTPC purposes is always going to be an encoded stream (meaning the actual bitstreams are barely a dent in what the media is capable of handling, like ~20Mbps h.264 streams instead of 150Mbps raw uncompressed streams), the necessity of RAID of any kind doesn't really help much at all.
Setting up a system where the drives are assigned to specific roles and purposes, i.e. one drive for recording, one for playback/storage, etc, will tend to offer the best compromise and most efficient level of operation.
Has anyone used Acronis True Image before? I was trying to clone my Sammy 160GB to my WD 400GB, and it was stuck on a processing screen after I selected the 160 HDD, my OS drive, as the source. I waited for a good hour, and it never got past the screen so I assumed something was wrong. Should it have taken that long in the very beginning?
Edit: Nvm, got it working. I removed some stuff off the HDD, turned off my antivirus, and did manual instead of automatic cloning. Not sure what fixed it, but its working.
Edit: Nvm, got it working. I removed some stuff off the HDD, turned off my antivirus, and did manual instead of automatic cloning. Not sure what fixed it, but its working.
Last edited: