Home Forums Discussions General Discussion upgrading hard drive on main computer

i am using v8.2.5
the hard drive on my main computer is a sata drive about 150 gigs.
i have about 25 gigs free space
i would like to have a larger drive.
i have heard that a solid state drive would have faster read and write features, and might help with some lags that sometimes occur.
so my question is - if that advice that a solid state drive would be better is correct;
and then - how would the best way for me to take the data from the old hard drive, copy it, and move it to the newer larger drive- and have it work on my main computer. it has to be easy and dummy proof for me.
thanks

It is really fairly straight forward many SSD manufactures sell upgrade kits which include SSD (go for 500 GB) appropriate USB to SATA cable and download instructions for cloning software, works best/fastest transfer if have USB 3 ports on computer but USB 2 ports work just slower.
Depending on your machine the SSD may slide right into a hard drive slot sometimes an adapter may be needed as the SSD's are smaller than standard spinning drives. I use Samsung, Crucial is good, Intel a little pricier.

One recommendation:

If you can, install the SSD as a second drive - say drive G. Then have tech-support help you move your AC installation over to that drive. Leave everything else on the old C drive.

This will give you the advantage of sparing all the speed of the SSD for Amazing Charts. Other stuff will speed up, also, because of the release in competition, just not as much since it's still on the SATA.

JamesNT

I had to chime in here as I was able to do this fairly easily a few months ago and I am NOT a hardware techie at all! After doing this successfully once, I went ahead and replaced about 4 SATA drives with SSD!!
You buy a samsung SSD: 1 TB should do. It comes with Samsung migration software to clone your existing HD. I actually used another freeware available online called Macrium reflect to clone the existing hard-drive (you connect the new SSD by USB and clone it). There are excellent youtube videos on using macrium. For one HD, Macrium kept getting stuck and I used the Samsung migration for that one, successfully. You will only run into problems if the new HD is SMALLER in capacity than the old one.

Once the disk is cloned, you open up the tower and put it in place of the old HD and your computer will start up and everything will be back to normal except it will be faster! I had difficulty getting one SSD to fit into the 'roomy' hard drive bay: I just taped it in with electrical tape!

a.j. has a great method. I use Macrium a lot, but I would probably go with the Samsung cloning software.

As far as the smaller size fitting in the computer, a) it should come with an adapter, but buying those Velcro stickers works great.

thank you all

Probably last to the party here,
but I just upgraded my main computer (Windows 7 peer to peer, Dell Inspiron circa 2013, Amazing Charts 10.0) from a 500 GB hard drive to a 1 TB Western Digital SSD. Was running out of space on the 500G drive.
Took about 3 hours. Plugged the SSD into bay 2 using a SATA cable (not included with new drive but had a few laying around). Then ran the free Acronis True Image software from the Western Digital site to clone the original drive to the new drive. Then I disconnected the old drive ( I could have told the BIOS to boot from the new drive , I guess, but I didn't want any confusion down the line).

Although I had a 2.5" to 3.5" drive tray converter, things didn't quite line up right as far as the power cables, so had to do some finagling. Also the Acronis didn't recognize the new drive as western digital, even though it was , so Acronis refused to run. So I simply plugged in a western digital extenal drive drive via USB and Acronis was happy (one one of the drives connected to system has to be recognized as Western Digital, even if it is not used in the cloning process.

Speed increase is nice. Windows now boots in a minute rather than like 10.

Hi Ken,

I think you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by just getting a SATA to USB converter. Plug the USB end to the SSD and run the software. You can clone it in minutes.

If there are issues, you can use a 3rd party app like here:

https://www.backup-utility.com/articles/clone-hdd-to-ssd-via-usb-0708.html

Thanks Bert.

If you clone a drive will the programs be ready to go or do you need to re-install them. For instance I am still running Soap ware on one of my computers. I was under the impression that the program will be up and running until the drive fails after that. I will no longer have soapware.

Dru

I've done hard drive cloning with Acronis also used the freebie stuff that comes with Intel SSD and Samsung SSD and so far everything was fully cloned/copied/working on new hard-drives

Hi Dru,

Perhaps Soapware resists transfer to a new drive or computer?

(We all know an EMR like that.)

***

If you don't know, the easiest thing is to clone the existing drive to a new drive.

If cloning works, you're done.

Many new drives include cloning programs.

Or you can use a utility like many of the ones listed here with the free ones first:

https://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortlicense/partitioning.html

***

Another possible but trickier solution is to try virtualizing the whole computer and then mounting it on a host computer.

You can create a virtual machine file that holds your whole computer with Microsoft's free Disk2Vhd:

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/microsoft_disk2vhd.html

You can then copy and run the virtual file on most fast modern computers (lots of RAM helps) with Oracle's free version of VirtualBox:

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/virtualbox.html

When you open the virtual file, the original computer appears in a window, running almost as fast as it would if installed normally on the same computer. But it thinks, for the most part, that it's still on the original computer.

In the window, you run your original computer normally and your changes are saved in the virtual file, which can be copied to other computers.

Configuration can be a bit tricky and some copy-protection schemes still require original keys (it's best to install the main program on a clean virtual system), but virtualization might work for you if cloning fails.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

So Carl
If I clone my hard drive to another drive them make that drive my main drive will all my installed programs be up in running or do I have to re-install them afterwards?

If you clone one drive to another, all things being equal, and you install to the same computer, it will be like the same computer. Everything will work. The only thing, I believe, is the drive you clone to should be the same size or larger.

As was mentioned in some of the posts above, the software that clones SSDs is incredible. SSDs, in general, are the way to go at least for your OS and databases and other data. Just a lot faster and, of course, reboot times go from minutes to seconds.

It is very cool. Say you have a 128 GB SSD that is running out of space or not acting right. You buy your 256 GB or 512 or Terabyte SSD, plug it into your computer via USB, run the program. It finds the SSD and clones it in minutes. The beauty of this, you open the computer, change the SATA power and data cables, and it boots right to that drive. And, I just Velcro my SSDs so now you have the old drive right there if you screw up something or need a file later.

Hi Dru,

Cloning just copies one drive to another.

Like xeroxing, cloning doesn't hurt anything.

So you can buy a large enough hard drive, run whatever cloning program comes with it, and try the cloned drive as your main drive in the original computer.

Windows should boot normally.

All your programs (including Soapware) should run without re-installation.

But wait a few minutes when Windows first boots from a cloned drive.

Windows may belatedly announce that it found-and-installed-new-equipment that requires a reboot because your new hard drive is a different model than your old hard drive.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Thanks

Techies, preferred brand of SSDs?

Thanks to all who posted on this thread. I am not really a hardware person, afraid of screwing up these kind of things. But, I took the plunge. Followed the advice here, used Samsung SSD 500 GB, cloned using Macrium Reflect. Velcro'd the SSD to the old HD (great idea, Bert!) Amazingly simple.

But, one problem, I replaced a hard drive that was 150 GB, cloned it to the 500 GB Samsung. But, the computer now running with the SSD is showing the drive to be only 150 GB, not the 500 GB. Where did I go wrong? How do I fix this?

This happens when cloning from a smaller disk to a larger disk. The space is there, it is just unallocated, and you can't see it from Windows or File Explorer.

You need to go to Disk management. In Windows 10, right-click on the Start button, and you should be able to click directly on Disk management. If not, you can go to Administrative Tools -> Comp Management -> Disk Management.

You will now see your OS and your unallocated space. You can right-click in the used space and click on extend volume to make one large partition that will show the space of the larger drive. Or you can click on shrink volume and make a second partition which is unallocated, convert it to a new simple volume and format it as anything you want. The new partition can be used for a second partition or you can delete the volume giving its space back to the drive and extend the OS drive, likely C, again.

You will only get in trouble if you try to delete the C: drive. And, the easiest thing is just to extend the drive.

The caveat is you can't extend the C: drive directly if there are files between it and the unallocated space. This may be a partition Windows created like a recovery drive. This will be easy one you get to Disk Management.

If you need to you can always download any of the tens of free partitioning software. Acronis is pretty good. Many others.

Samsung. Nice! Make sure you install the software with it. It allows a lot of configuration and tuning stuff. For instance, you may want to trim the drive. I would just go through all the settings and see what is possible.

Thanks Bert. I tried disk management, could not enlarge the C drive as it did have the recovery partition after it, before the unallocated space.

So, I went back to cloning. Thanks to you Bert, I had the old hard drive still in place, just had to plug it back in. Macrium offers the option to change the partitions before you start the clone. I ran the cloning again, this time enlarging the new C partition to capture the unallocated space. Voila!

Awesome! You are the new Sandeep! I can't tell from your posts if this is your first SSD, but if it is, you will love it.

Ironically, the Macrium software likely, like Acronis and others, allowed you to move the recovery drive to the other side. I have no idea why Microsoft does that, but hey, it's Microsoft. Most of the partitioning software will tell you what the steps will be prior to performing them, so you are in good shape.

The only thing I would suggest is make sure you have a good backup of your new SSD before doing anything. At least that is why it is good to have the old backup. You could get a very inexpensive WD blue 4TB drive (if there is space) and put it in the computer. You could have imaged it quickly to that drive. Or since you should practice the 3-2-1 backup rule, you may have an external USB drive. I generally have the same size or larger SSD lying around and clone from SSD to SSD (their software is incredible). Again, just plug the newest into the computer via USB and it clones in minutes. Then label it. Of course, any backup like that will only be good for a week or two, but making major partition changes would be considered major for people like you and me.

I have my own rule. Since it is 1-2-3, I just think 1-2-3 and A, B, C. so

A) All changes
B) Backup
C) Clone

Of course not talking about downloading Spotify, lol.

Are am excited for you. The best way to learn is to just do it. Sounds like Nike.

If this is your first SSD, please report back. Let us know the reboot times, and how your Word and Email programs open.

Your comparison is a great disservice to Sandeep, I am a complete novice!

That?s why I am so amazed that I could do this. I have an SSD in a laptop but these are my first SSDs in desktops. The boot time is really fast. I use Libreoffice for word documents, it used to be painfully slow to open; it is not instantaneous but it?s pretty quick now.

I did discover one strange problem. I still use Paperport which harkens back to the Leslie days. On the new SSD, PP started putting watermarks on the documents which happens in the trial version. After some online research, I learned that the registry settings for PP are tied to the hard drive. So, it no longer recognized that I was using a licensed version of the software. The fix required fiddling with the registry, and uninstalling and reinstalling PP, a real pain.

Or you can just take it to Fry's and they will do it for $75

No Fry's here, but we do have Microcenter that could have done it.
That was my fall back option if I ran into trouble.
But, I am glad that I learned to do it!

Which cloning program option did you go with. If you went with Macrium or Acronis did you go with the free edition, or did you pay for the program and if so what option did you choose?

Macrium free version, I had tried Acronis years ago and did not like it.

Donna:
Was that the 30 day trial? I also see you can choose for home or business is that correct? I also believe you can choose for server or not. So many choices! What do you recommend.

Dru

I'd vote for the Samsung "PRO" line of SSD drives.

Dru, no not the 30 trial, just Google Macrium free. It may have had a choice home or business, I took home I think.

I did use the Samsung Pro 500 GB SSDs.

thanks