cloning question

[Chum]

Going to get 1TB SSD soon. Currently around 300GB used space on my HDD(1 TB) which I plan to clone to SSD. Is it helpful to defrag the HDD before cloning? Any idea on how long cloning process takes?

 

[Suppressor1137]

The cloning process goes as fast as the HDD read speed, Correct me if I'm wrong there. for 300 gigs, I'd estimate ~40 minutes max. This is calculated by the total amount of data divided by the read speed of the HDD; 120-150 mb/s.

300,000(300 gigs)/150(perfect world read speeds of 7200 rpm HDD)= 2000 seconds. Convert Seconds to minutes by dividing by 60, and 33.3 repeating minutes.

In real world, add 3-5 minutes to the time for read speed fluctuations.

And I would, It never hurts to defrag HDD's.

Don't bother defragging your new SSD though, You won't gain any noticeable speed, and it just shortens the life of the cells with the constant shifting of files.

 

[Chum]

I already knew it is no-no to defrag a SSD but thanks all the same! I have been lazy on defragging my current HDD! Defraggler estimated time is greater than 1 day!

 

[Suppressor1137]

No problem, Added the math to my initial response in case you were interested and adjusted numbers to fit properly.

And if your drive is that fragmented, DEFINITELY defrag before you clone, if you have to, break it up into different defragging sessions overnight. Pause/stop the defrag when you need to use the pc, then continue when you are finished.

 

[Mighty_Miro_WD]

Hi @Chum!

Defrag is needed for mechanical platter drives because the speed at which the data can be read from the center of the disc vs the outer edge differs. However, I don't think it will be necessary to do that before you clone the HDD because it won't make any impact on the performance or the cloning speed whatsoever.

As for the estimated time, it's hard to say how much exactly it will be, but the calculation provided by @Suppressor1137 are pretty good and will give you a basic idea of how long it will take.

Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions you may have!

 

[Suppressor1137]

Hi @Chum!

Defrag is needed for mechanical platter drives because the speed at which the data can be read from the center of the disc vs the outer edge differs. However, I don't think it will be necessary to do that before you clone the HDD because it won't make any impact on the performance or the cloning speed whatsoever.

As for the estimated time, it's hard to say how much exactly it will be, but the calculation provided by @Suppressor1137 are pretty good and will give you a basic idea of how long it will take.

Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions you may have!

Ah, alright. I figured that the fragmentation process could lead to errors possibly, but apparently my understanding was a little bit lacking of what fragmentation actually was.

Thanks for clearing that up!

 

[knoober]

It might be worth mentioning that you can resize your partition to avoid cloning the empty space.

 

[trents]

Acronis adjusts partition size on the fly when the two drives are different sizes.

 

[mimart7]

The drive can also be imaged, instead of cloning. That will only copy the data, and not the whole partition. There are plenty of options out there, at no cost.

 

[knoober]

The drive can also be imaged, instead of cloning. That will only copy the data, and not the whole partition. There are plenty of options out there, at no cost.

I did not realize an image omitted blank space... Perhaps only unformatted space? Either way this thread has been informative for me as well. Thanks

 

[trents]

I did not realize an image omitted blank space... Perhaps only unformatted space? Either way this thread has been informative for me as well. Thanks

No, it will up size or downsize blank space on the fly. I prefer Acronis for cloning but use Macrium for imaging.

 

[Suppressor1137]

There is a software being sold on the latest humble bundle for us pc guys:

EaseUS Partition Master Pro - $pay what you want

Some other nice additions for the full $12 minimum tho, including:

3DMark Advanced Edition

VRMark Advanced Edition

PCMark 8 Advanced Edition

Among other useful programs.

Check it out