SSD's, several on order, need advice on process

[Spike]

I jumped into SSD's a year an a half ago with my HTPC and main gamer builds. Thinking I knew what was going on I went with OCZ for both... as you might have guessed not so smart. Fast forward to today and both PC's suddenly decide to lose their SSD's at inopportune moments and I'm stuck with the "insert bootable media message" prompt. The only way to fix is to unplug the SSD, restart, shut down, plug back in, and restart. Switching SATA ports does not help. Ugh

After doing some research I might have gone a little overboard and now have 3 SSD's on the way. A Plextor M5S 128GB, Crucial M4 64GB, and Samsung 830 128GB. I plan to use the Crucial in the HTPC and most likely the Plextor in my main PC saving the Samsung for my next build within the next few months.

My question is what is the best way to go about cloning the old OS drives onto the new ones. The Crucial I bought comes with the data transfer cable if that helps during the process. I also have both OS drives backed up on my WHS 2011 box but I somehow doubt simply restoring that to a new drive would work, what with all these alignment issues I keep hearing about.

Suggestions? A few people responded in my help thread regarding the initial problem and I'm going to investigate those options as well but I wanted to see if anyone in this group knew some good idears.

Thanks!

 

[RU482]

clonezilla works well (free) if you are going from an equal or smaller partition or drive to another partition/drive.

Symantec Ghost works great if you have the means, and can clone just about anything to anything.

thats all I have experience with

 

[Spike]

Ghost might be worth trying, I'm pretty sure I have a copy around here somewhere. I'd be cloning 60GB drives to either a 128GB or 64GB SSD. I assume after the clone I could always expand the partition to add in any extra space.

BTW once I successfully clone these drives I do plan to update the firmware on the OCZ's and give them another go, but this time as game drives where they are not all that important if they fail.

 

[Zap]

My question is what is the best way to go about cloning the old OS drives onto the new ones. The Crucial I bought comes with the data transfer cable if that helps during the process.

There's your solution!

The software requires the drive to be connected using the Apricorn USB adapter, but otherwise does not care which brand of actual drive. The EZGIG4 software also will properly align the clone.

Here's what you do.

1) Attach new SSD to the adapter.

2) Plug adapter into a USB port (IDK if it will work on 3rd party USB 3.0 controllers).

3) Boot off the CD that came with the SSD.

4) Tell the software which one is the source and which one is the destination drives.

5) GO!

 

[Spike]

There's your solution!

The software requires the drive to be connected using the Apricorn USB adapter, but otherwise does not care which brand of actual drive. The EZGIG4 software also will properly align the clone.

Here's what you do.

1) Attach new SSD to the adapter.

2) Plug adapter into a USB port (IDK if it will work on 3rd party USB 3.0 controllers).

3) Boot off the CD that came with the SSD.

4) Tell the software which one is the source and which one is the destination drives.

5) GO!

ooooh, me likey. If thats all it takes to get a properly aligned clone then I'll be very happy, definitely worth the extra ~$10 I paid for the version with the cable and software.

Thanks zap, I'll give it a whirl!

 

[bigsnyder]

Thoughts on this program for migration?

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/dc-professional/

 

[Zap]

Thoughts on this program for migration?

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/dc-professional/

It is cheaper to buy the "kit" that comes with the software + adapter than to buy the drive sans kit, and pay $40 for the software.

 

[kmmatney]

Well, I've cloned a lot of drives to SSDs using the following methods:

1) If one of the older drives is a WD or Seagate drive, I install the free version of Acronis that you can download from Seagate or WD. This is nice as it works directly in windows, and is very fast. The Seagate or WD drive doesn't need to be the one you are cloning from - you just need one plugged anywhere in the computer (even plugged in as a USB drive will usually work). I then use G-parted to align the SSD, by offsetting the start of the first partition by 2048K. I've had 100% success with this, and the Acronis software is free, and let's custom resize the partitions as needed.

2) You can also use G-parted directly to copy over the partitions from thw old drive. This usually works, but it's slow, and the clone will occasionally fail.

My Samsung SSD came with a kit, and the USB adapter works great. However the version of Ghost it came with was terrible - I couldn't get it to work properly.

 

[iiiankiii]

I use Acronis True Image. It's easy to use. It took me about 10 minutes to clone a 30gb OS image.

 

[bigsnyder]

It is cheaper to buy the "kit" that comes with the software + adapter than to buy the drive sans kit, and pay $40 for the software.

Agreed, but regrettably did not. I do have both WD and Seagate drives so the free versions of Acronis are viable options.

UPDATE: The software disc that came with the bare drive allows download of Norton Ghost. Nice surprise.