Upgrading to SSD hard Drive

[wood1e2]

Hi

Is it possible to copy/clone/duplicate an existing hard drive and move to a new hard drive, ie an SSD drive.

And once migrated the software that was on the original drive be working on the new drive?

Or would I have to re-install all the software on the new drive

 

[Timoxendale]

Yes you can easily do it without any need to reinstall anything just Google "drive cloning software"

Lifehacker has a good article titled “How to Migrate to a Solid-State Drive Without Reinstalling Windows”

 

[nahosting]

If you buy the 'desktop' or 'full' version of an SSD rather than just the disk you quite often get cloning software included.

However I would also think about taking this opportunity to rebuild your PC if you haven't for a while (and have the knowledge to do the task) as your PC often gets clogged up over time with old software/ temp files etc.

Good luck.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

As mentioned you can do it, and it's pretty straightforward generally, but it's also generally seen as a bad idea to clone a HDD to an SSD.

I wouldn't recommend it.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2627005/transfer-system-hdd-ssd.html

 

[rmmfree]

You can use open source software, like Clonezilla. It works fine.

 

[wood1e2]

mmmm nothing like confusing and conflicting answers to help

@nahosting - what is "If you buy the 'desktop' or 'full' version of an SSD " ?

When I am looking at SSD I presume they are 'FULL' or normal or standard...or exactly what I want, not 'Desktop' or 'Full'

Please can you clarify why I would want one or either, or why I how I could potentially end up with the wrong thing?

@Dan_HiHosting - confused here, as the forum your link is to, just has another link to a 'how to migrate' and all that talks about is cloning.

So cannot see why it is not something to recommend?

Basically I don't have a disc anymore for Sage Accounting and I want to migrate without having to get the disc to re-install.

So if I can migrate/clone/move/whatever the term is, to a SSD without having to re-install ANY and ALL software including the OS that would make live soo much easier.

Many thanks for the responses so far.

 

[Bradley Holmes]

There´s a good guide on how to do it here,
http://www.howtogeek.com/97242/how-to-migrate-windows-7-to-a-solid-state-drive/

There´s a few things that need to be turned of and on in windows to have a SSD, Trim needs to be turned on and defrag off,

That guide walks you through the whole process.

 

[Alan]

I bought the Kingston 'kit' from ebuyer (at about £70 for 250gb) which come with the mounts / cables & cloning software.

Easy peasy. And PC runs so much faster.

(I have to admit to doing nothing in the articles above)

 

[Bradley Holmes]

You should at least make sure TRIM is turned on, or it could damage the life of your new drive.

Just open a command prompt and run
fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

if it returns =0 then it is on, if it says 1 then you need to run

fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0

 

[Alan]

Thanks I will do, next time I turn that Windows machine on. I converted to Chrome Books a little while back, no disc to worry about

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

@wood1e2 The link I posted has a number of people stating to do a clean install instead, along with the reasons, e.g:

The clean install when replacing a hard drive in your computer is the recommended thing to do, because cloning actually transfers all your redundant files as well (temp, dump, etc.). This cloning/migrating process is the second best solution to installing a new OS drive only when you don't have your original Windows Installation media and your computer doesn't come with a pre-installed version of it.

If you have a genuine license key for Sage, then you should be able to get a replacement disk or ISO/exe to to install Sage again by contacting them directly.

There's no need for confusion really. It's easily done using free software. If you buy a retail SSD - so fully boxed (not just the drive), then that often comes with cloning software. You can also buy kits as Alan did - which will include the cables etc.

However it's generally not recommended. Some will say it's fine. Your computer will likely work fine. But I'd go to the trouble of the doing a clean install, and if you ask on more tech based forums or do a search on the web you'll likely find the same recommendation.

Best of luck,

Dan

 

[johndon68]

Basically I don't have a disc anymore for Sage Accounting and I want to migrate without having to get the disc to re-install.

As long as you have a login for Sage's website, full installs can be downloaded here: http://ask.sage.co.uk/Scripts/ask.c...d=26323&p_prodlvl1=311&p_prods=311&p_pv=1.311

John

 

[wood1e2]

sh1te I never knew I have just logged in and there is full download of V22 something we don't use. We are on V20 and 3 excel updates behind.

Having said that there is nothing complicated to our work, so we bought Sage in 2009 and then update year before last before they moved eveyone on to their monthly payment online thingy!!!

Anyway, thanks for that link @johndon68

Having said just remembered why I didn't install SAge 2015 it is some server driven thing!!

I presume the
Sage 50 Accounts v21 - Full Program is all I need?

As we only use V20 at the moment.

 

[wood1e2]

@Dan_HiHosting - thanks for that.

One thing I have just thought off, is migrating to SSD means connecting it to a SATA cable in the computer, will it not be as fast as it could?

Will the cable become the bottle neck and therefore make the SSD's performance not much better than the current HDD?

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

No problem.

A Sata SSD is still much, much faster than a HDD. Sata III has 6GBps bandwidth.
Most people that have SSDs have Sata SSDs. Along with RAM (if you need more), it's the best and easiest upgrade you can make, that will make a real difference. A HDD is a major bottleneck for a computer. All that lag and waiting is generally caused by having to wait for the disk to fetch the data you need. It's horribly antiquated.

Yes if you get something like a 3rd Gen PCIe nvme SSD you can get 3 to 4 times the performance of a Sata SSD in benchmarks, because the interface bottleneck is removed, but for general use you won't really notice that in real world use.

If you haven't got an SSD yet by the way, you may want to wait for black friday/cyber monday.
Amazon will likely have some very good deals.
I'd recommend one of the latest Samsung drives, like the 850 EVO.

This is a great price:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B00P736UEU

The 1TB performs even better, and you don't pay any premium for the extra storage - it's basically twice the price of the 500GB.

I run a 1TB 850 Pro and Windows 10 boots in about a second.

I'm assuming you have a Sata III interface, so do make sure your computer is compatible etc.

 

[wood1e2]

hi,

Not sure if what SATA interface I have I am using a DELL T1700 with only 500GB hard drive, I have a feeling both the HDD and Dell were a mistake??!??

But rather than bail on Win10 and loose the money I paid for the machine and buy a Mac Mini, or PowerPC I thought I would look into the SSD or Fushion drives around!

As it is potentially cheaper than a new Apple machine.

 

[Sparx]

You just need to buy a standard SATA SSD for your PC.

Which is essentially the Samsung SSD that Dan linked you earlier.

 

[johndon68]

I presume the
Sage 50 Accounts v21 - Full Program is all I need?

As we only use V20 at the moment.

If you have v20 at the minute then that is the version you download, you don't have a licence for v21.

John

 

[wood1e2]

@johndon68

Yes we bought two versions at same time.

Sage were doing a buy one get one half price, before they switched over the monthly pricing. Or whatever they do now.

So we bought 2014 and 2015 at the same time, not sure what versions they are.

We only did it to extend our potential 'software dead date' ie the final point in the future at which SAge stopped supporting either product.

We just never got around to using 2015 as it used the word 'server' too many times. And as we don't need a server let alone most of what Sage can do anyway, we decided to upgrade to only 2014.

And so that is why I think we have different downloads available to us.

 

[wood1e2]

@Sparx

So even though I have a standard SATA the cable won't slow down the effectiveness of the SSD?

 

[johndon68]

If you bought 2015 then that is v21.

John

 

[Sparx]

@wood1e2 there's no difference between SATA cables. There's been some heavy testing in the past, whether they were 'rated' as SATA1, 2 or 3 they all perform the same.

 

[wood1e2]

@Sparx what I meant was does the capacity of the SATA not slow down the SSD?

And therefore cut down it effectiveness because of capacity limitations with SATA connection?

Not actually sure how else a SSD would be connected to the computer, I just thought SATA cables had a max transfer rate?

 

[ukwebhosting]

+1 for buying Samsung SSD they come with or at least mine did an app called Samsung magician which turns on/off the things that you need to do in your OS

Paul

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

@wood1e2 I already explained this:

A Sata SSD is still much, much faster than a HDD. Sata III has 6GBps bandwidth.
Most people that have SSDs have Sata SSDs. Along with RAM (if you need more), it's the best and easiest upgrade you can make, that will make a real difference. A HDD is a major bottleneck for a computer. All that lag and waiting is generally caused by having to wait for the disk to fetch the data you need. It's horribly antiquated.

Yes if you get something like a 3rd Gen PCIe nvme SSD you can get 3 to 4 times the performance of a Sata SSD in benchmarks, because the interface bottleneck is removed, but for general use you won't really notice that in real world use.

Let's put it this way, an SSD is far far faster than a HDD. That's been the case for years. Most people, even now, still use SATA SSDs.

So that answers your question about whether an SATA SSD will be faster.

The word you're looking for is bandwidth or throughput, not capacity.

Although, typically a higher capacity SSD will perform better. E.g. a 512GB SSD will typically perform better than a 256GB SSD.

The higher the capacity drives in the same range will generally outperform the lower capacity drives.

I really don't know why you're worrying about the interface. A SATA SSD will massively increase the performance of your computer if you're currently running a standard HDD (which is likely also only 5400 RPM).

 

[wqgdhdg]

You can easily do it without any need to reinstall anything just Google "drive cloning software.

 

[ZaraAllen]

In my opinion, SSD is faster than any other type of hard disk. I have user computers with SATA and SDD and I can tell the difference in speed.