Upgrading W10 Boot 240Gb SSD to 1Tb SSD

[Pao1os]

Hi everyone,

I have a Vortex laptop bought in 2014 which still has a reasonably good spec (Core i7 2.5GHz, 16GB system RAM and GTX870 with 6GB RAM). I initially purchased it with a 240GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W) which is now very close to being full.

I would like to replace this SSD with a 1TB SSD which seems to be easy enough however I would like to clone the 240GB drive onto the new drive to avoid reloading all of my software. The operating system has been upgraded from Win 8 to Win 10.

The software that I use includes Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Cyberlink Powerdirector (video editing). MS Office and Steam.

1. 1 - Would it be possible to buy a new 1TB SSD and clone the 240GB boot drive to it using a USB (it has 3 USB 3 ports) to SATA cable or would I need to install the new drive in the second drive bay (which is currently occupied by a 1TB storage HDD)?
2. 2- Can anyone recommend software to perform the cloning and is there anything I need to watch out for?
3. 3- Would any 2.5in SATA SSD work in the existing drive bay?
4. 
   
5. 4- Eventually I would like to replace the storage HDD with a SSD to speed up access for photo and video files, I assume this would be a straightforward clone as it does not include the operating system?

I know that once cloned I would need to install the new SSD and change the BIOS to see it as the boot drive.
Sorry for the deluge of questions but I would rather try and find out now than spend the money and find that there is a glitch which prevents me from doing this.
Many thanks
Paul

 

[ubuysa]

Hello Paul and welcome to the fora!

Let me first point out that these fora are community supported, very few on here work for PCS (and I don't) which means you'll get unbiased opinions on here.

To answer your questions....

1 - Would it be possible to buy a new 1TB SSD and clone the 240GB boot drive to it using a USB (it has 3 USB 3 ports) to SATA cable or would I need to install the new drive in the second drive bay (which is currently occupied by a 1TB storage HDD)?

It is possible to clone the existing SSD to a new SSD, but not by copying one to the other as you suggest (via USB for example).

1. 2- Can anyone recommend software to perform the cloning and is there anything I need to watch out for?

   Get Macrium Reflect (free) and use that to take an image of your existing SSD to an external HDD, or to the internal HDD if there is space on the drive.
   You'll need to use Macrium Reflect to make a bootable recovery disk (DVD, USB etc.) - and you should test that it works.
2. Then remove the existing SSD, replace it with the new one, and then boot the Macrium Reflect recovery media. Use that to restore the image of your old SSD onto the new one.
   Once that's done you should be able to boot Windows from your new SSD as normal.
   
   

   3- Would any 2.5in SATA SSD work in the existing drive bay?

   Yes. But it's wise to ask advice on here before buying, some SATA SSDs are better value than others.
   
   

3. 4- Eventually I would like to replace the storage HDD with a SSD to speed up access for photo and video files, I assume this would be a straightforward clone as it does not include the operating system?

4. Replacing the HDD with an SSD will speed up access to photos but it will do nothing to speed up video files. Videos are processed in real time (as you watch them) with a new buffer being loaded before the one you're watching has finished. The speed of an SSD just loads that next buffer faster, but because you're still watching the current buffer you don't notice any difference at all. It's not bad to put videos (and music, for the same reason) on an SSD, it just doesn't buy you anything.

 

[Pao1os]

Hello Paul and welcome to the fora!

Let me first point out that these fora are community supported, very few on here work for PCS (and I don't) which means you'll get unbiased opinions on here.

To answer your questions....


It is possible to clone the existing SSD to a new SSD, but not by copying one to the other as you suggest (via USB for example).

1. 
   Get Macrium Reflect (free) and use that to take an image of your existing SSD to an external HDD, or to the internal HDD if there is space on the drive.
   You'll need to use Macrium Reflect to make a bootable recovery disk (DVD, USB etc.) - and you should test that it works.
2. Then remove the existing SSD, replace it with the new one, and then boot the Macrium Reflect recovery media. Use that to restore the image of your old SSD onto the new one.
   Once that's done you should be able to boot Windows from your new SSD as normal.
   
   
   Yes. But it's wise to ask advice on here before buying, some SATA SSDs are better value than others.
   
   
3. 
   
4. Replacing the HDD with an SSD will speed up access to photos but it will do nothing to speed up video files. Videos are processed in real time (as you watch them) with a new buffer being loaded before the one you're watching has finished. The speed of an SSD just loads that next buffer faster, but because you're still watching the current buffer you don't notice any difference at all. It's not bad to put videos (and music, for the same reason) on an SSD, it just doesn't buy you anything.

Brilliant, thanks for the reply.

So, in short use Macrium to create an image of the 240GB SSD using either an external drive or the internal HDD, use Macrium to create a bootable recovery with a USB stick, then install the new SSD and boot using the recovery USB to restore the 240 SSD image to the new SSD?

Do you know if Macrium will partition the new SSD to enable the additional disc space (or would this need to be done manually?)

Many thanks for the help.
Paul

 

[ubuysa]

So, in short use Macrium to create an image of the 240GB SSD using either an external drive or the internal HDD, use Macrium to create a bootable recovery with a USB stick, then install the new SSD and boot using the recovery USB to restore the 240 SSD image to the new SSD?

Exactly.

Do you know if Macrium will partition the new SSD to enable the additional disc space (or would this need to be done manually?)

By default it will restore exactly the partition structure that's in the image. You can resize (and reorder) partitions at restore time with Macrium Reflect but it's a bit fiddly, especially if you're new to the tool. It might be safer to restore the 240GB image and then use Windows Disk Management to partition the new drive the way you want.

Why do you want to partition that drive? Partitioning is not always a good idea, and with an SSD the drive isn't actually partitioned at all, it just creates an illusion that it is for Windows.

 

[Pao1os]

Exactly.

Why do you want to partition that drive? Partitioning is not always a good idea, and with an SSD the drive isn't actually partitioned at all, it just creates an illusion that it is for Windows.

So if the new drive were not partitioned, Win 10 would be able to see its (1TB) total capacity (given the image would have been from a 240GB drive)?

Thanks
Paul

 

[ubuysa]

So if the new drive were not partitioned, Win 10 would be able to see its (1TB) total capacity (given the image would have been from a 240GB drive)?

Thanks
Paul

Yes, though you may need tp extend the partition to the full size of the drive after restoring it.