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using a smaller hard drive

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I have an older PC (from 2011).  It's been running 24/7.  It's pretty beefy.  My current HD is about 1.35 TB.  I know it will eventually fail.  Can I replace the HD with a smaller 500 GB SSD using Acronis 2019?  I currently am only using about 110 GB.  A SSD of the same size is too expensive. I was looking at a Samsung SSD.  Supposedly it comes with an app to transfer data to the new HD.  Should I use the Samsung app, or is Acronis 2019 OK?  Is there anything else I need to know about replacing a HD with a SSD? I am currently backing up my data on an external HD.

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Some comments:

  • Create the Acronis Rescue Media and test booting from it.
  • Make a full disk backup of your current HDD drive to an external drive.
  • Try to shrink the size of your main OS partition on the HDD to below the 500GB size of the new SSD you are thinking of getting.  You can try to do this using Windows Disk Management or else download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software which is easier to use and can also move any partitions if needed.
    Note: you should aim to have upto 20% of free space on the new SSD.
  • Check the BIOS boot mode of Windows on your current HDD - given the 2011 vintage, then I would expect this to be Legacy / MBR but double-check by running the msinfo32 command and looking at the BIOS mode value.  This will show either the HDD make / name if Legacy, or else show UEFI.

All the above are to help with preparing for making the change of drives.

When ready to proceed:

  • Do a full shutdown of Windows (hold the Shift key then click on Shutdown).
  • Remove the current HDD and replace it by the new SSD.
  • Boot from the Acronis Rescue Media in the identified BIOS boot mode from above, with the external backup drive connected.
  • Recover your full disk backup to the new SSD.
  • Check the Log for the operation while still in the rescue environment.
  • Shutdown, remove the rescue media and external drive.
  • Boot normally into Windows from the new SSD.

KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media