Mechanical disk to SSD clone?

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XiandreX

XiandreX

Golden Member
Jan 14, 2011
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Excuse my lack of knowledge but is there anyway to clone a mechanical HDD to SSD without messing up the SSD's speed etc? I have heard that SSD's use a different format for allocating data to each portion of the drive.

I have a 500 gig caviar blue and want to move to an SSD in the near future without having to reinstall everything.
Thanks in advance
 
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tweakboy

tweakboy

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2010
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www.hammiestudios.com
What OS you have. If you have Windows 7 or Windows 8 ..... the OS has great built in create a image on your external drive ,,,, then make a repaiir disc,, boot off it and restore your image onto SSD ,,, ... your set!!!!!!! ready to go....
 
Cerb

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
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Yes, but it can be some work. You should be able to Google for guides on the subject. Note that today, it also applies to HDDs, too.

SSDs, and new HDDs, will be set up with their smallest chunks for writing or reading as 4KB, where it used to be 512B for HDDs. Your FS defaults to using 4KB blocks. Using 512B sectors, a 4KB block that crosses over multiple sectors will result in an additional sector read or write per access.
Code: 
SSD or AF HDD: * * * * * * * *|* * * * * * * *|...
512B MBR     : xxxxxxxxxxxxx|* * * * * * * *|...
Ideal        : xxxxxxxxxxxxx  |* * * * * * * *|...
*: 512B
|: sector/block/cluster boundary
xx: important MBR data that you leave alone
The default alignment, starting the first partition at 512B sector 63, results in every read or write needing to affect 1 more disk sector for every data block the OS/FS works with.

So, you would need to clone the partition aligned, then fix the bootloader. You should be able to find guides on doing it in various ways, but make sure they are newer ones, if they use partitioning utilities, like GParted. I don't know about all of them, but GParted now has a checkbox for alignment, and defaults to either 1MB or 2MB aligning. Guides from maybe 2010 are probably much more complicated than is necessary, today.

If you use Windows 7, all you'll want to do after that is turn off Superfetch, and maybe indexing. With older versions, you'll want to disable defragging, too (7+ will not defrag SSDs).
 
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BrightCandle

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
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Just find q guide using clonezilla, it will deal with all the problems and tell you if its possible or not.
 
ronbo613

ronbo613

Golden Member
Jan 9, 2010
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I cloned my SSD from a mechanical hard drive using GParted. If your operating system is Windows 7, that makes it easier. Just pay attention and follow the directions carefully, you shouldn't have any problems.
Clonezilla is a great program, maybe a bit easier to use than GParted, but it did not work on my computer because my hard drive was connected to a Marvell controller, so if Clonezilla doesn't work for you, it may be a similar issue.
 
Z

Z15CAM

Platinum Member
Nov 20, 2010
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www.flickr.com
One of the easiest ways is to Run System Prep / On Reboot use a Cloning Software (I personally like Ghost 8 Enterprise in DOS Mode) and make an Image. Partition the SSD the way you want using Diskpart then dump the images onto your SSD and simply Reboot - Device Manger will run and automatically Align the SSD and load fresh System Drivers.
 
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BFG10K

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
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Most of the SSD vendors use Acronis for cloning and it automatically handles alignment issues (and similar). I've cloned many OS partitions off HDDs to SSDs without issue.
 
XiandreX

XiandreX

Golden Member
Jan 14, 2011
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Thank you very much for all the replies. This is exactly the response I was looking for. I will do some reading on the new guides and various clone software available.
I am using Windows 8 pro 64 bit if that helps any. :)
 
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S

Sheep221

Golden Member
Oct 28, 2012
1,843
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SSDs are seen by the system just like magnetic drives. Cloning is technically copying data from one drive to another. And you can do it with any partition cloning program.
 
John Connor

John Connor

Lifer
Nov 30, 2012
22,757
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I cloned a RAID from 2 platters to an Adata SSD using Acronis and it worked. Don't know about all the boot loader and alinement crap. I have used macrium reflect too.
 
razel

razel

Platinum Member
May 14, 2002
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From what I remember, Intel, Seagate (SeaTools) and Western Digital (DataGuard?) all offer free cloning software which is usually a branded version of Acronis. If you own an SSD or HDD from any of those manufacturers you can download and use it for free. The software runs as long it can detect it, usually through the SATA or eSATA port. If you are lucky even the SATA-USB enclosure/adapter they include work as well.

However since you are on Win8, ever since Win7, the OS has an included a built-in image backup. The Win7 one takes a bit of work to backup a larger drive and restore to a smaller one. From what I remember I had to shrink the partition 1st. I haven't to do the same with the Win8 version yet. I've only done Win8 backups so far.

If you'd like to try just search for 'Windows 7 File Recovery' in 'Settings.' Please let us know how it works out. Best of luck.

By the way, there are hints that Windows 8.1 may remove the built in image backup... how sad. I almost get a feeling that the backup software companies may have had a hand with dealing that blow.
 
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Essence_of_War

Essence_of_War

Platinum Member
Feb 21, 2013
2,650
4
81
Excuse my lack of knowledge but is there anyway to clone a mechanical HDD to SSD without messing up the SSD's speed etc? I have heard that SSD's use a different format for allocating data to each portion of the drive.
Click to expand...

Terabyte Image for Linux, and Image for Windows both handle this nicely also. Software is free for trial/evaluation.

Specific details on how to handle the move from HDD to SSD here:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=554
 
XiandreX

XiandreX

Golden Member
Jan 14, 2011
1,172
16
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razel said:
From what I remember, Intel, Seagate (SeaTools) and Western Digital (DataGuard?) all offer free cloning software which is usually a branded version of Acronis. If you own an SSD or HDD from any of those manufacturers you can download and use it for free. The software runs as long it can detect it, usually through the SATA or eSATA port. If you are lucky even the SATA-USB enclosure/adapter they include work as well.

However since you are on Win8, ever since Win7, the OS has an included a built-in image backup. The Win7 one takes a bit of work to backup a larger drive and restore to a smaller one. From what I remember I had to shrink the partition 1st. I haven't to do the same with the Win8 version yet. I've only done Win8 backups so far.

If you'd like to try just search for 'Windows 7 File Recovery' in 'Settings.' Please let us know how it works out. Best of luck.

By the way, there are hints that Windows 8.1 may remove the built in image backup... how sad. I almost get a feeling that the backup software companies may have had a hand with dealing that blow.
Click to expand...

I will most certainly post feedback. Just be patient. Have some bills to deal with. :)
 
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K

kmmatney

Diamond Member
Jun 19, 2000
4,363
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81
If you want to do it directly in windows, I've also used the free version of Acronis several times. The free version of Acronis (at least the versions I've used) can be downloaded from Western Digital's or Seagate's web site. If you don't have a WD or Seagate hard drive, you can cheat by temporarily connecting one to your motherboard, or even with a USB adapter. I keep a few old drives around for this reason. The Acronis software just needs at least one Seagate and WD drives somehere in the system, it doesn't have to be involved in the cloning process. Acronis works very fast, which is why I prefer it over Clonezilla.

After cloning, I then use GParted to align the SSD (place a 2 MiB space in front of the first partition).
 
S

saratoga172

Golden Member
Nov 10, 2009
1,564
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BFG10K said:
Most of the SSD vendors use Acronis for cloning and it automatically handles alignment issues (and similar). I've cloned many OS partitions off HDDs to SSDs without issue.
Click to expand...

This. Was about to recommend acronis for this purpose.

We use acronis at work all the time and are currently in the process of upgrading all mechanical drive systems to ssd's. We are using acronis for this and 100gb's of data takes about 20 minutes to convert then we verify data.
 
XiandreX

XiandreX

Golden Member
Jan 14, 2011
1,172
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saratoga172 said:
This. Was about to recommend acronis for this purpose.

We use acronis at work all the time and are currently in the process of upgrading all mechanical drive systems to ssd's. We are using acronis for this and 100gb's of data takes about 20 minutes to convert then we verify data.
Click to expand...

That's good to know. So clone and manually align or let it auto align?
 
E

Enigmoid

Platinum Member
Sep 27, 2012
2,907
31
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DO NOT use the F**ing program acronis. It is a complete POS. It screws up your whole system, can damage RAID arrays and for me resulted in the complete disabling of the USB controller system (with the exception of my mouse) in my laptop. (I could also not use Bluetooth to transfer files to my phone).

As per instructions in this thread I downloaded and used the WD version of the utility to close my HDD to my new SSD, worked fine and automatically rebooted off of the SSD when finished. Worked fine except I realized that the system could not install or even use USB device drivers (with the exception of my mouse which has constantly been plugged in) afterwards. Devices were visible in device manager but would not work due to errors in driver installation.

I removed acronis (which is really tricky because when you uninstall it in control panel-- the only way I could find to uninstall it, the uninstall progress bar fills nearly to completion then starts emptying. WTF? And its not actually uninstalled. Files are still there and the program can be launched. You must restart your computer to remove it; an no there is no indication that that is what you must do) and now everything is back to normal. Computer is fast with SSD and thumb drives work.

If you must use it, remove it as soon as possible. Personally i'm a bit leery of the program because of the degree to which it integrates into the system (more than most antiviruses).
 
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