Cloning apps to handle SSDs?

arkhi · 28 Sep 2011

Ohh. Cool, now I know that I should be cautious should I decide to get an SSD myself. Thank you :)

pbcopter · 28 Sep 2011

I used Acronis True Image to create an image of my original Hard drive (Windows 7) and then recovered the image to an new SSD. The correct alignment was preserved and Windows recognized it as an SSD and disabled Defrag as well as enabled trim, etc. The only thing I needed to do was disable indexing for the drive.

gregrocker · 28 Sep 2011

I'd lean toward the free quality premium Acronis cloning/imaging app which comes free with any WD or Seagate HD in the mix. Or one of the recommended freebies: Win7, Macrium, Paragon 11.

Here's the book on this: SSD - Install and transfer the Operating System

aem · 28 Sep 2011

DeaconFrost said:

There's no need to use Sysprep when it would be used in the same system that the OS is currently installed on. I also don't see why I would want to involve another computer to do a simple cloning operation. That's never been necessary before when going from HDD to HDD. I'm an I.T. Manager, so I'm very familiar with cloning and Sysprep. My questions are only revolving around the OS's autoconfig for an SSD drive.

You sysprep to make it ready to be captured and dumped. Doesn't matter where you dump the image it's about preparing an image, capturing it onto a media and then dumping it onto another machine or in this case your SSD. But i know this is not what you are after, right?

You scenario is this.

HDD0 - The OS you want to capture.
HDD1 - The SSD you want to dump the image of HDD0 onto.

HDD0 and HDD1 are on the same machine.

If this is not correct where is the SSD?

gregrocker said:

I'd lean toward the free quality premium Acronis cloning/imaging app which comes free with any WD or Seagate HD in the mix. Or one of the recommended freebies: Win7, Macrium, Paragon 11.

Here's the book on this: SSD - Install and transfer the Operating System

"The OS transfer

This is done with an image. There are a variety of free imaging programs (e.g., the free editions of Macrium, Paragon, Acronis, etc.) that are suitable for the task. You can also use the Windows7 imaging, which has the advantage that it deals with the 100MB active boot partition automatically. Disadvantage is that you never know exactly what it does.

You image your partitions to an external disk (you may have to assign a drive letter to the 100MB partition so that the imaging program can identify it) and then pull the images back in to the SSD (using the bootable recovery program of the imaging program).
"

This is basically capturing an image, dumping it onto another media, then puting it back to the SSD. Sounds like what i would do with North Ghost and Bart PE (excluding the technicality of removing SSIDs etc).

DeaconFrost · 28 Sep 2011

aem said:

You sysprep to make it ready to be captured and dumped. Doesn't matter where you dump the image it's about preparing an image, capturing it onto a media and then dumping it onto another machine or in this case your SSD. But i know this is not what you are after, right?

That is my scenario listed, but Sysprep is not needed when there are no hardware or licensing changes. I'm also not creating an image at all. I'm cloning from one drive to the other. I'm not asking about or questioning the process....I'm asking about the software used to clone, and how, or if, it can configure Windows 7 properly.

preiius · 28 Sep 2011

Everyone recommends starting from scratch. Reinstalling windows and applications take minutes, they say, but they usually left out what a pain it is to configure them.

As ignatzatsonic said, no one has said with authority that cloning from hdd to ssd doesn't work if the imaging tools is compatible with win7 and supports alignment, such as true image 2011.

Once you moved to a ssd, and if win7 hasn't already recognized it is now running on a ssd, try refreshing WEI to tell windows to reconfigure itself on what hardware it is running on, i.e. enable trim, disable defrag, proper alignment, etc.

DeaconFrost · 28 Sep 2011

That was going to be my plan. Starting from scratch is no big deal, as I am down to under 2 hours for that entire process. I was asking out of curiosity, mainly. This is on a work system, so I was looking for the quickest solution.

gregrocker · 28 Sep 2011

Try cloning or imaging it over to see how performance pans out. If it doesn't then do the clean install.

Have been surprised at user satisfaction with transferring to HD>SSD using imaging. Wolfgang's tutorial receives much deserved praise as it allows tuning the image to SSD.

aem · 28 Sep 2011

DeaconFrost said:

aem said:

You sysprep to make it ready to be captured and dumped. Doesn't matter where you dump the image it's about preparing an image, capturing it onto a media and then dumping it onto another machine or in this case your SSD. But i know this is not what you are after, right?

I'm asking about the software used to clone, and how, or if, it can configure Windows 7 properly.

Yes i know but you already know a couple of software that clones HDDs. And i have given oen also Ghost. But which will work for Windows 7 is something of a trial and error. If you are worried about SIDs, Windows Keys, MAC address, Computername (or anyone of of those). Sysprep with imagex i recon.

essenbe · 28 Sep 2011

The real question is not the clone itself but whether the alignment will be correct. I have used the acronis clone feature several times. It works most of the time but I have had it mess up the alignment too. It is not foolproof. The clone is foolproof but it is the alignment that does not always remain correct. Paragon migrate will do it every time exactly correct. I have transfered an OS with it to a new raw drive. It came out perfect and aligned exactly right. No prep needed.