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Clone OS from HDD to SDD

Comixbooks

Comixbooks

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Joined
Jun 7, 2008
Messages
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How good does this work planning on getting a Samsung drive.....
I just reinstalled windows 8 so I don't want to spend 2 days reinstalling it again if cloning the HDD to SDD doesn't work.
 
Put it this way. I was facing a similar dilemma. My 3 x 640GB WD Blue RAID0 array crashed and I wanted that performance back without having to do a fresh install. Installed a Mushkin Chronos 480GB with roughly 460MBps Read and 420MBps Write. Now, I couldn't get my partitions aligned using any method without screwing up the bootup so I was unable to retrieve the performance hit from cloning HDD to SSD.

All in all I would say on about every benchmark (sequential read/write, 4K, etc.) I lost 50%. It ended up being about as fast as my old RAID0 array, so to me it's worth it, but I could double that performance if I ever do a fresh install.

You take a hit on the 4K read/writes big time (over 50%) but it's still blazing fast even compared to my RAID0 array loading things is incredibly.

I say do it and go the long, slow road to reinstalling later.
 
In theory, you should be able to use the bundled Samsung cloning software to clone and "prepare" the SSD to ensure you get the increased SSD performance speeds.

Best thing to do is connect the SSD to the computer using a secondary SATA port OR using a USB adapter, and boot into the OS using the old HDD. Run the cloning software, swap the HDD out and the SSD in, and that *should* do it.
 
I use a program from Paragon called Migrate OS to SSD.
Makes cloning from a large partition to a smaller ssd possible. The other cloning apps I tried would not even start if the source partition was larger than the destination.
 
I think I'll put the money towars a PS4 or something =)

I heard that even with a 500 gig drive you only like like 420 gigs out of it.
 
If you installed from Windows Vista or newer your partitions will be aligned. The alignment should be cloned so going disk to SSD will work. Once back into Windows, re-run WEI so that Windows can detect the SSD and make the service adjustments it needs to make.
 
Comixbooks said:
How good does this work planning on getting a Samsung drive.....
I just reinstalled windows 8 so I don't want to spend 2 days reinstalling it again if cloning the HDD to SDD doesn't work.
Click to expand...

2 days to reinstall? Did you install from a bunch of floppies? :p Just get the ISO, copy to flash drive using the W7 USB/DVD tool and install. To make fresh installs easier in the future, save the drivers and fresh install programs. For instance, I like CCleaner, FireFox, FileZilla, Plex Media Server, drivers for my printer, CCleaner, etc. They're all in various folders for my various computers. It is much easier than scouring the internet for hours for all the drivers and software.
 
2 days to reinstall? Did you install from a bunch of floppies?
Click to expand...

Depends on how many programs you have installed. It takes me a few days to reinstall (home or work) onto SSDs from iso files because of all the programs that I use.

Edit: I just checked here at the work pc: I have 102 items in my Program Files folder and 172 items in the Program Files (x86) folder and still a dozen or so applications that do not install in either location..
 
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The lazy man's convoluted way:

1 - Make a Windows repair disk.
2 - Use any free/paid HDD clone software to copy the HDD to SSD.
3 - If the SSD doesn't boot, boot from the Windows Repair Disk.
4 - Let the Auto Repair fix the MBR/GUID issues.
5 - Use an alignment tool to re-align the partitions.
 
drescherjm said:
Depends on how many programs you have installed. It takes me a few days to reinstall (home or work) onto SSDs from iso files because of all the programs that I use.

Edit: I just checked here at the work pc: I have 102 items in my Program Files folder and 172 items in the Program Files (x86) folder and still a dozen or so applications that do not install in either location..
Click to expand...

True, the most annoying part to me are the Windows Updates. They take so incredibly long to install!
 
Comixbooks said:
I think I'll put the money towars a PS4 or something =)

I heard that even with a 500 gig drive you only like like 420 gigs out of it.
Click to expand...

I'm going to assume from this statement that you're not exactly a "techie" kind of guy? Nothing wrong with that, just that it explains your reluctance.

All HDD's (including whatever one they stick in a PS4) is going to have "smaller" capacity then what the drive says on the label.

The reason for this is because Drive Manufacturers state drive sizes based on SI base 10 standard. What that means is 500GB to them, is 500 billion bytes. The problem is that computers use the base 2 system, so 500GB (in the computer world) is actually 536, 870,912,000 bytes (Or roughly 537 billion bytes).

So because a HDD is 500 billion bytes large, it's 465GB in actual size (This is because there are 1024 kilobytes in a byte, 1024 megabytes in a kilobyte, etc).

The confusion comes from the standard notation, where G = billion in base 10, M = million, and so on. So even though bytes were never part of the SI system, the prefix of G and M make sense using base 10. This is largely a marketing problem, because 500GB sounds better then 465GB.

There is actually a standard unit of measurement called a GiB (Or Gibibyte) that correctly uses the base 2 system (Where 1024 is the multiplier, not 1000). Mac OS X and some Linux Distro's (Maybe all? Don't know) are using GiB now instead of GB.

Anyway, long story short, even your PS4 will have a smaller HDD then the box states.

Considering that a PS4 is going to cost you $400 minimum most likely, and a new SSD will cost you $100 for 128GB (For $400, you could get a 500GB SSD).

Regardless of what you use your computer for, adding an SSD boot drive will make it feel like a rocket ship. And others here have stated lots of ways to ensure that your OS is properly aligned after cloning, though honestly, just use the bundled Samsung software that comes with every Samsung SSD. You'll have no issues.
 
I picked up a 250 gig Samsung for cheap on ebay I figure it's good for all the online game Ifor load times I play. I wanted a 500 gig but I figure the 250 is good enough.
 
Comixbooks said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4lmGpGN3a0

There is no way I can mess this up now =)

I got the kit version too...... All of my games should fit on there but I'll use Steam Mover to move the single player games to a HDD over which have less loading times.
Click to expand...

yeah, i've got a 60Gig SSD that i've been using for games.
It's rather more than enough as I don't have more than a few games on there at once. (generally only play one or two games at any given time)

I just shuffle stuff around with SteamMover, works well.
 
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