Cloning from HDD to SSD

[Harsky]

Been helping out with my dad's new laptop. After an evening of deleting the bloatware and installing classic shell on W8, he's happy with it... for a week and now he's saying that he's willing to spend extra to get an SSD installed on it to stop that HDD loading noise. I placed an order for the Crucial M4 but the thing is that I don't want to do a fresh install and want to do clone the 1TB HDD to the 256GB SDD instead.

I did have experience in cloning from small HDDs to bigger HDDs but I have no idea which program is recommended for cloning from SSD to HDD. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[trumpet-205]

Actually, you WANT to do a fresh install on SSD.

The thing with SSD is that its alignment offset is different than HDD. By cloning HDD to SSD, SSD will have lower than expected performance (data out of alignment), and Windows will most likely treat it as another HDD.

 

[marcus134]

there are ways of copying and correcting the offset:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...-gt-SSD-*with-alignment*-quickly-with-GParted
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...h-stuttering-and-increases-drive-working-life

 

[Foxi4]

I'd recommend doing a fresh installation on the SSD - there's really no reason why you should go through the extra trouble of copying files when you'll get the best performance from a new installation. You can always transfer your settings over to the new installation.

 

[Minox]

there are ways of copying and correcting the offset:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...-gt-SSD-*with-alignment*-quickly-with-GParted
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...h-stuttering-and-increases-drive-working-life

Even if you do correct it you'll be left with settings within Windows that are less than optimal for SSD usage since it was configured while using a normal HDD. As annoying as it can be, but a clean install really is the best option.

 

[Sicklyboy]

Starting a fresh install of Windows is one of the better feelings in life.

Well, at least for me it is.

 

[Zetta_x]

And remember AHCI mode