Moving OS from HDD raid to SSD

[medo145]

Before asking the question, I know the best answer is "reinstall"

Now I'm looking for equally good solutions.

Currently I have 3x1TB drives in raid. first 210GB in raid 0 and the rest in raid 5.
I just picked up a samsung 840 pro on sale from newegg. What would be the best way to get my OS to the SSD? and I think I read somewhere some time ago that the registry needs to be edited for the OS to take advantage of the SSD.

 

[Johan45]

Hd and SSD's don't align the sectors the same way. It really is the best solution to do a fresh install. You can set the alignment afterwards but....

 

[RGone]

I just thought I would throw this up so you can see a little about partition alignment.

How to: Properly re-align your SSD/HDD partitions

1. Some imaging software does not "honor" partition alignment when the image is moved from one drive to another. Later imaging software seems to indicate they honor alignment.

2. I use imaging software to image a partition and put the image on another drive/partition of another drive.

3. If windows is not installed to a 'prepared' partition before the install begins it creates a hidden 100MB partition for boot files and the files it uses to repair boot errors. Imaging software most be aware of that small partition or the image will not boot on drive the image is applied to.

4. There are many reasons to RE-install if you have not made good preparations on the original installation.

5. Samsung SSDs, I think or at least it did at one time, ship with software to move O/S from one drive to another. The 3 drives in raid 0 should be seen as one partition which it is and maybe copy that to the new SSD. I have no idea if it works. I know what to do from first installation to a move to another hdd/ssd so I have not used some of the things now claimed to work with some of the newer drives. Just don't need them myself.

 

[manu2b]

Some softwares like Acronis true Image automatically align.

 

[EarthDog]

Some softwares like Acronis true Image automatically align.

From HDD to SSD it does? Neat!

 

[manu2b]

^yes yes, I used Acronis TI a few times for this purpose and it worked great!

 

[medo145]

Good info, thanks. will give it a try, if it doesn't perform up to specs I can always go the reinstall way. I'm curious if raid striping matters. Anyone know, which of the 2 sata 3.0 controllers is better?

Intel® Z68 chipset :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), gray
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), blue
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
Support Intel® Smart Response Technology on 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processor family
Marvell® PCIe 9128 controller :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), navy blue

from the asus website.

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z68_DELUXEGEN3/#specifications

 

[manu2b]

Grays are sata3, 6Gb/s, so they're faster.

Avoid Marvell ones.

 

[c627627]

Unless you format the drive under Windows XP, it should be properly aligned if you format it under Windows Vista/7/8.

Then simply reimaging the drive should result in proper alignment.



To check from DOS:

diskpart
list disk
select disk #
list partition

Offset should be 1024 KB or any number that can be multiplied with a whole number to get 4096.

 

[Johan45]

But in all fairness when installing to a SSD it only takes about 15 minutes, and most people have copies of their drivers somewhere. And I would assume that because of the size and price of the SSD's you wouldn't want to clutter it up with unnecessary software.

 

[EarthDog]

+1. I start fresh... even though my images are pretty fresh themselves, in most cases, I start from scratch with my trimmed W7 install.

 

[medo145]

But in all fairness when installing to a SSD it only takes about 15 minutes, and most people have copies of their drivers somewhere. And I would assume that because of the size and price of the SSD's you wouldn't want to clutter it up with unnecessary software.

It may take 15 min to install windows, but this a matured installation that is about 5 years old. There are tweaks and sw that is on there that will take a lot more than 15 min. I don't want to be using my comp a couple months down the line and be like, hmmm what is the name of that sw that I had to do this.

It takes time to get the OS and programs to a point where you like it. I most likely will have to bite the bullet and do a fresh install, but I will try anything possible in order not to.

 

[EarthDog]

Take snapshots/images post installation of the software and drivers. Sure there are some things you may miss moving past that, but you can also take incrementals of the base image too and restore to those.

 

[medo145]

Would it be possible to make an image of the OS drive partition and make it into a vm image? That way I could fire it up in VMWare to look for stuff.

 

[Ajay57]

This is the one i used successfully to clone a HDD to a SSD, it auto sets the Partions for you. So book mark and read it, its a free trail at first with a option to buy later on!! AJ.

1, http://www.farstone.com/software/drive-clone.php


Just click on the green icon button for the Free Download!

 

[c627627]

The mistake I made when I reimaged mechanical drive images over onto my SSD was that I formatted the SSD under Windows XP.

I'd be curious to find out if formatting the SSD under Vista/7/8 then simply reimaging from mechanical to SSD would result in anything but perfect alignment.


Can people post downsides of doing this.

 

[EarthDog]

That is going to depend on the imaging software as some will align properly, and some wont (SSD unaware).

 

[Ajay57]

Also as i have found only some programs will work when sizing from a 500GB HDD to a 256GB SSD. And like ED said the align wont be perfectly correct.

 

[c627627]

Well, that is a different topic. In other words, sizing from mechanical A to mechanical B may not work, meaning, regardless of SSD, that is a sizing issue.

But if you partitioned your original drive so that your OS occupies a relatively small partition, and if your SSD was formatted under Vista/7/8 and not Win XP, then what are the downsides of simply imaging (if you are able to) from mechanical to SSD.


Of course if you can't image, than the point is moot, but if you CAN, than isn't it just a matter of
1. Format SSD under Vista/7/8
2. Restore image to SSD

 

[medo145]

This is the one i used successfully to clone a HDD to a SSD, it auto sets the Partions for you. So book mark and read it, its a free trail at first with a option to buy later on!! AJ.

1, http://www.farstone.com/software/drive-clone.php


Just click on the green icon button for the Free Download!

Quick question, can this software clone the drive that the OS is running from while in windows. I would think that it wouldn't be able to. Or do you set what you want to clone and it reboots?