What is the easiest way to transfer a W7 install from an old HDD to a new SSD?

[Ichigo]

Just the straight-up easiest no-frills, cheapest way to clone something so I can swap the drives and nothing changes except things are like pewpew faster.

 

[Lifted]

I think it's best to do a fresh install due to alignment issues, but Windows 7 can accomplish what you want using backup and restore in the control panel. use the create a system image option.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Restore-your-computer-from-a-system-image-backup

 

[Ichigo]

What are these alignment issues? Google sends me results from 2009 for some reason.

 

[Lifted]

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_to_set_up_Windows_on_a_VERTEX#Windows_7

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html

Problem description

The traditional rotating disks are divided into physical sectors. The Windows operating systems and their components operate according to this sector logic. Despite the fact that SSDs store the data in a completely different way, they are still being treated with this sector logic.

The alignment of the SSD is required to assure that a logical sector starts exactly at the beginning of a physical page of the SSD. Without the alignment, the sector boundaries and the page boundaries will not match and sectors will span pages. That would require for a Windows write operation to clear two blocks in lieu of only one thus reducing the write speed by 50%.

Situation

If you install Windows7 on a brand new SSD, you need not make any special arrangements because the Windows7 installer will do the alignment for you. For Vista you are lucky because the start sector happens to match a SSD page. For XP the start sector is 126 which would be in the middle of a SSD page, thus a prior alignment is required.

A similar situation is present when you clone an existing OS (including Windows7) on a new SSD.

 

[Johnnie Walker]

Not sure if this has been completed yet, but I have had success with Paragon Migrate to SSD (can be used with standard HDD's as well)