How to install an SSD keeping all software ?

Hello,

This is only my 3rd post!
I bought a new laptop 2 months ago (Tecra R840-16J)! I made a list with the specs I wanted for my new laptop (I have Toshiba laptops from 1997...still working)! The R840-16J had everything except an SSD!!! (and I could not custom make it here in portugal!).
The Seagate Momentus 500 GB 7200 rpm installed (I just posted my performance results in the thread about HDD performance) have not that good performance and have a tremendous vibration (I can feel it all over the laptop).
I'm thinking in a Samsung 830 512 GB SSD but I've some questions that only experts and experimented users can answer .

1- would the performance increase?
2- I never had a fail with my HDDs (I have one 7 yr laptop that I use to my astrophotography capture sessions that run dozen of times in a very harsh environment and it is still fine!). What about the 830 ssd ?
3- About energy: I allways hibernate my laptops! What the drain in energy in a laptop with a ssd when hibernated?
4- And the main question : I have lots of sw installed (very specific for astronomy). I have Adobe Master Collection for example which is huge! Is it possible to install the new ssd and keeping all the stuff as it is now? I mean...maybe I clone all my HDD content with Ghost (that I bought but I think it will come with the 830..grhhhhh) and then transfer that for the new SSD, install ssd and all will work???? (or there is much more work to do and complications to do?). I'm just a computer user without not many experience in informatics!

Thanks a lot in advance for all the help you can give me

Regards,
paulo

Please have a look at this tutorial: SSD - Install and Transfer the Operating System

Thanks Seavixen32.
I already saw that tutorial .
Samsung recommends a fresh install of OS! Is this necessary?
Had anyone just clonned the entire HDD and then migrates to the SSD with sucess? (I'm using these info words but I do not know if they are correct!!).
I really would not like to install al my software, drivers, etc from scratch after installing a SSD!

Regards,
paulo

Check this thread as it would appear that a clean install is the best way forward.

How can I transfer windows to SSD as D, and keep everything on C?

paulobao said:

1- would the performance increase?
2- I never had a fail with my HDDs (I have one 7 yr laptop that I use to my astrophotography capture sessions that run dozen of times in a very harsh environment and it is still fine!). What about the 830 ssd ?
3- About energy: I allways hibernate my laptops! What the drain in energy in a laptop with a ssd when hibernated?
4- And the main question : I have lots of sw installed (very specific for astronomy). I have Adobe Master Collection for example which is huge! Is it possible to install the new ssd and keeping all the stuff as it is now? I mean...maybe I clone all my HDD content with Ghost (that I bought but I think it will come with the 830..grhhhhh) and then transfer that for the new SSD, install ssd and all will work???? (or there is much more work to do and complications to do?).

1: You will notice faster boot times. Applications will open a bit more quickly. You may or may not think the improvement is worthwhile.

2: Any drive can fail at any time for no apparent reason. The Samsungs have a pretty good reputation, but have been available for only a short time. I'd be reasonably confident, but there certainly are no guarantees of reliability.

3: SSDs have no moving parts, so I would assume they use less power than traditional drives.

4: Cloning or imaging can work and can fail. I'd probably make an image first and then try cloning. If the cloning failed, I would try to restore the image. If that failed, I would accept the fact that a clean install was necessary. As far as I know, cloning or imaging can't harm the existing system and so are both worth a try. I'd probably use Macrium or Acronis.

You might also look into this tool that costs $20:

Paragon Migrate OS to SSD - System migration to Solid State Drives (SSD) - Overview

paulobao said:

Had anyone just clonned the entire HDD and then migrates to the SSD with sucess?

Yep, two days ago I did just that. Went from an 80 GB HDD to a 120 GB SSD just by making an image of the 80 GB with Macrium and loading it onto the SSD using the recovery disk from Macrium and been working without a hitch at all.

Ideally the only way it should cause a problem is if your OS drive/partition is larger than the drive you are migrating it too. If that is the case then you will have to shrink the partition as mentioned in the tutorial,

Note: Most free imaging programs cannot shrink the originating partition to fit into the usually much smaller C: partition on the SSD - even if the amount of data in that partition would fit. In that case you will need to shrink the C: partition on the HDD prior to imaging it. The HDD C: partition must be smaller or equal in size to the designated partition on the SSD. For that operation I also recommend this program because Disk Management might not be able to shrink it enough.

Thanks a lot for all the input!
I will go from a 500 GB HDD to a 512 GB SSD so no problem .
I store all my data in a 1 TB USB 3.0 external portable HDD!
I even think a 512 GB SSD is overkill (my 7 year laptop only have 80 GB HDD and I have 39 GB free).

Regards,
paulo