Backing up and restoring an SSD

Here I am back to answering my own questions ;-)

I did a couple of tests using an identical Vertex 4 128GB SSD as the target.

Test 1
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1) Partitioned the target drive exactly as my SSD boot drive and formatted it using Windows 7.

2) Checked the disk using Paragon Alignment Tool 3.0 and confirmed that everything was correctly aligned.

3) (From within Windows 7) Restored the 'C' partition from the backup to the target drive but did not restore the 'MBR and Track 0'

4) The result was NOT aligned properly

Test 2
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1) Partitioned the target drive exactly as my boot drive and formatted it using Windows 7.

2) Checked the disk using Paragon Alignment Tool 3.0 and confirmed that everything was correctly aligned.

3) (From within Windows 7) Restored the full drive backup to the target which includes the 'MBR and Track 0'. This warned that it would overwrite any existing partition info on the Target drive.

4) The result WAS aligned properly ! :-)

The only issue left was to get it to boot, which often requires a small startup repair using the original Windows install disk. My experience (with my ASUS P9X79 motherboard) has been that the Windows startup repair only works if the drive is connected to one of the SATA 3G connectors. If I leave the drive connected to its usual SATA 6G connector Windows will not find the Windows install to repair.

The solution seems to be to do a full disk restore (which includes the 'MBR and Track 0') and then move the disk temporarily to a normal SATA 3G connector to perform the Windows boot repair if directly booting Windows 7 from the disk fails.

If I was doing the restore from an Acronis recovery DVD I assume it's important to perform the restore using a normal SATA 3 port.

QUESTION:
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I wonder if it makes any difference that I had partitioned and formatted the target drive prior to doing the full re-install?

Russell

There is no way of knowing. Under normal procedures, the target disk is preferred to be unallocated, and initialized if necessary.

If you are truly talking of the very old version 11 and not referring to the 2011 version, then yes, it may have helped as the old version 11 dos not support Windows 7. Any restore overlayed the pre-partitioning so iif it helped is a guess on my part.

Yes it's the old version 11 and not 2011.

Would there be an advantage in using v2011?

Russell

The 2011 version supports Windows 7 and the version 11 does not. If I had a choice as to which to use, it would be 2011 but if you know 11 works, use whatever will work for you. If I were to buy Acronis today, it would be 2013.

I thought that simple backing up/restoring of a disk was essentially unchanged since v11?

Sure there are new features that are windows 7 specific. But so far I've seen no difference in the backups created by v11 vs v2009, v2010 and v2011 (I own them all). I just keep using v11 as it's simple and does all I need. I'm not interested in cloud backups, Try&Decide, continuous backups or all those other 'new' features.

I also recently paid for the 2013 update (special online upgrade price offered) which I regret as it's so unfamiliar to me I feel like I'm going to make mistakes. The interface is just way too simplified. I suspect v2013 is different from its predecessors, but never thought the previous 4 versions were all that different with their basic backup/restore feature.

Thanks for the info. If there really is a difference in SSD support between the last 4 versions I would like to know about it.

Russell

Hi Russel,
I don't speak for Acronis so any of my comments at just those of my own. There is no visible changes in the Recovery CD but there have been minor changes to the program plus a new Linux kernel.

I believe the basic premise is that if the partition alignment is correct in the source, it will be correct in the target. The program will not correct a wrong alignment but the user can interject their own adjustments so the alignment is correct. The newer vesion seem to have make some changes to make that adjustment easier as some of the early relases of 11 and 2009, getting the starting offset to be 1 was more difficut than the current issue--or at least it seems to me. Win 7 has made that easier to all partitions created by 7 have the correct offset.

The do not use the non-stop backup or sync--just basic backup and restore. If you do not have 2013 installed, I would wait until the next build --probably due sometime over the next few months--if history is followed. With the more frequent use of the GPF disks, this should force some changes in the restore logic of both the CD and Windows.

If you have not followed 2013, the Windows version is much much different. Review my signature link #2 below for a general overview of its basics.