Questions about shifting Windows 10 to a New SSD without reinstalling OS.

[ubersetis93]

New to this SSD related stuff and recently saved some $ to get a 120GB SSD to shift my OS to that drive than HDD.

I have certain question regarding the shifting process and how its done. Kindly take your time in reading them since I'm new and might potentially get my d**k stuck in a toaster if the instructions aren't clear.

 

1 - What is the efficient way to transfer the OS to HDD without reinstalling everything?

I've read there are certain tools to perform such tasks, Macrium Reflect / AOMEI Backupper / EaseUS. So if I use them to shift files to the new SSD then restart to enter BIOS and change the boot drive to the new SSD, will the system normally boot from the SSD afterwards after i clear the old OS files from HDD? is it that simple or am i missing anything big here?

Also, what is the best safe/free software to perform this? I'm planning to use AOMEI but i need answer from experienced people.

2 - Will all my current settings / changes be there when i change the boot drive?

I've spent months on optimizing my windows 10 for better performance with information from tons of videos/forums/articles/posts etc and I have no intention to do them again because at this current state everything is working fine and I'm not planning on screwing anything up again.

3 - I have all the external (non-OS related) drivers such as Nvidia drivers / other hardware drivers installed in C drive, after i shift the OS to SSD do i need to reinstall everything or those drivers will be there as is?

 

4 - What is this "clone / cloning " i keep reading about? is it a fancy term to replicate the OS files from HDD to SDD? or something serious i should focus about?

 

5 - There are so many tutorials and videos but I can't find anything that actually works, if you have anything please link them.

 

6 - Anything else i should look for?

 

Other Details :

Current OS : Windows 10 Education 64bit

OS Installed on : C drive (100GB Partitioned / only 24.8GB used)

Other specs : Ryzen 3 1200 [no OC] / Palit GTX 1050 2GB GDDR3 / G-skill Aegis 8GB DDR4

Mother-board : Gigabyte A320M HD2 CF

Any help on this is appreciated, thanks for reading.

[Steven P. Administrators]

I highly recommend Macromedia Reflect, I've used it a few times myself and it is free for home use with no catches or crapware getting installed on your PC. https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

Here's a video tutorial on how to clone your Windows disk to the new one

 

 

This video assumes the new disk is bigger, but you should be okay cloning to the smaller disk if the used disk space on the partition(s) are smaller than the new one. You may have to add the partitions manually to the new drive and then resize C:\ yourself so that all of the partitions fit. Just calculate down what you will have to reduce for C:\ in order to fit all of the partitions on the new drive because I am not sure if Macromedia Reflect does this automatically with the "copy selected partitions" link.

[Steven P. Administrators]

 

Oh btw after you have cloned the disk you will have to select the new disk to boot from in your BIOS. You won't need to reinstall drivers.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

Keep in mind that Windows will not perform as well as it can if you are doing a straight clone of a HDD to a SSD.

 

When Windows is installed initially the setup program checks the drive type and configures the default behavior of some services, most notably the disk defragmentation and file indexing services (and possibly others as well--the system prefetcher seems like it would be a likely candidate).

 

Windows does not check for any differences to the OS drive after the initial install, so these will be left with their original startup values.  Doing a clean install gets around having to look for lists of differences in service startups, registry entry values, etc., and go edit them.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[REM2000]

  On 21/11/2020 at 02:15, goretsky said:

Hello,

 

Keep in mind that Windows will not perform as well as it can if you are doing a straight clone of a HDD to a SSD.

 

When Windows is installed initially the setup program checks the drive type and configures the default behavior of some services, most notably the disk defragmentation and file indexing services (and possibly others as well--the system prefetcher seems like it would be a likely candidate).

 

Windows does not check for any differences to the OS drive after the initial install, so these will be left with their original startup values.

Doing a clean install gets around having to look for lists of differences in service startups, registry entry values, etc., and go edit them.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Expand  

Agreed, I know it's difficult however i would recommend a fresh install. 

 

However after you have cloned windows to the SSD just run a simple check that Win10 has recognized it's now sitting on an SSD and has TRIM enabled, which is important for the performance of your SSD. Without TRIM enabled no garbage collection will be performed and you SSD performance will degrade drastically. 

 

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-ensure-trim-enabled-windows-10-speed-ssd-performance

 

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

  On 21/11/2020 at 02:15, goretsky said:

Hello,

 

Keep in mind that Windows will not perform as well as it can if you are doing a straight clone of a HDD to a SSD.

 

When Windows is installed initially the setup program checks the drive type and configures the default behavior of some services, most notably the disk defragmentation and file indexing services (and possibly others as well--the system prefetcher seems like it would be a likely candidate).

 

Windows does not check for any differences to the OS drive after the initial install, so these will be left with their original startup values.  Doing a clean install gets around having to look for lists of differences in service startups, registry entry values, etc., and go edit them.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Expand  

 If you install windows to an SSD and clone it to an HDD, it will run like total crap (even worse than just clean installing to an HDD) and if you open "defragment and optimize drives " will still say you are running an SSD.

 

If you do a winsat formal from the command prompt, it re-benchmarks the system and configures itself properly now for an HDD instead of an SSD. if you reopen "defragment and optimize drives " it will now say HDD instead of SSD. After a few reboots, it runs just like HDD clean install. (Probably after it gets the prefetch reconfigured)  Same works both ways I think.

 

Personally I like True Image, not because Macromedia Reflect is bad but because Macromedia Reflects source and destination menu freaks me out. I find True Image to be MUCH simpler. With Macromedia Reflect I'm always terrified I'm going to nuke the wrong drive.

 

 

True Image

 

 

Macromedia Reflect

 

 

[Ve7878]

  On 14/12/2020 at 16:17, warwagon said:

 If you install windows to an SSD and clone it to an HDD, it will run like total crap (even worse than just clean installing to an HDD) and if you open "defragment and optimize drives " will still say you are running an SSD.

 

If you do a winsat formal from the command prompt, it re-benchmarks the system and configures itself properly now for an HDD instead of an SSD. if you reopen "defragment and optimize drives " it will now say HDD instead of SSD. After a few reboots, it runs just like HDD clean install. (Probably after it gets the prefetch reconfigured)  Same works both ways I think.

 

Personally I like True Image, not because Macromedia Reflect is bad but because Macromedia Reflects source and destination menu freaks me out. I find True Image to be MUCH simpler. With Macromedia Reflect I'm always terrified I'm going to nuke the wrong drive.

 

 

True Image

 

 

Macromedia Reflect

 

 

Expand  

+1 For TrueImage, I had a specific use case a few years ago where I had to clone a HDD to SSD (Usually I wouldn't do this) and it worked great.