Backing Up & Restoring Operating System! ............. Solid State Drive (SSD) to Solid State Drive

Please see above!

Also, will there be any problems regarding alignment, and if so what is the best method to correct!

Are there any software packages that will check/repair alignment problems!

1) and 2) - no. 3) is the same as for spinning disks - it restores the entire disk (volume) to its original condition at the time of backup.
4) depends on disk controller (that is nostlikely on the mostherboard) rather than on disk model.

Brian Taylor wrote:

Currently I have Acronis TIH 2011, Update 3, Build 6942, and I have ordered a new PC, with Windows 7(64 bit), two Solid State Drives (SSD's - both 120 GB Corsair Force 3) and a 1TB conventional hard drive!

The first SSD will be dedicated to my Operating System (OS), and I plan to use the second SSD, primarily, for backing up my operating system, using Acronis TIH! The conventional hard drive will be used for my personal data!

IMO it is a shame to use an SSD to store backups. If I were you, I would either use it to store applications, the paging file, or commonly used documents or content. If your motherboard features a RAID controller, you could put the 2 SSD on RAID0. Although this will prevent the use of TRIM (unless your disks and disk controller support TRIM in RAID), you will get a further boost in performance. You can get around the lack of TRIM by secure erasing your RAID SSDs from time to time before restoring the image. Anyway, ...

I am experienced at using Acronis TIH, with conventional hard drives, but have no idea regarding any special requirements for SSD's; such as:

(1) Are there any pre-requirements for backing up an OS?

No requirements. Just make sure you include all the partitions on the system disk in a disk and partition backup.

(2) Are there any pre-requirements for restoring an OS? (Such as secure erase)

No. You can take advantage of a restore opportunity to do a secure erase and restore the performance of you SSD to manufacturing level.

Does a restore of the OS to a SSD, effectively format/delete/create the drive, during restoration.

You don't need to prepare a disk before a full disk restore.

Namely, if I restore after several months, will the restore clear up all of the junk that may have built up with time!

No. A restore doesn't clean anything. If just put the data back as it was at back up time.

Will it clear data from the SSD cells

See above. If you want to secure erase, the Acronis drive cleanser or a restore will NOT do that.

(4) Will the recovery cd recognise the two SSD's, for a boot backup/restore!

If your disks are not GPT disks, the boot CD should see them. At any rate, try before you do anything!

Brian Taylor wrote:

Please see above!

Also, will there be any problems regarding alignment, and if so what is the best method to correct!

Are there any software packages that will check/repair alignment problems!

The best method to correct is to restore one partition at a time, in the same order they were laid out, just making sure that:
- there is a 1MB space/offset before the first partition (not a separate partition),
- marking the right partition active (as for any other disk),
- finally restoring the MBR+track0 and the disk signature (as for any other disk)

Hi Pat,

A quick note, just to thank you for responding so quickly and for the comprehensive detail in your comments! -- A great deal for me to digest! - This will take me a little time!

Regarding your comment: "IMO it is a shame to use an SSD to store backups. If I were you, I would either use it to store applications, the paging file, or commonly used documents or content!"

When I ordered this new PC, I asked the manufacturer, if he would supply/install a small SSD, say, 40, or 60 GB; specifically, so that I could have a dedicated fast drive to locate some of my store/working folders. I had in mind the store folder for Windows Live Mail, the working file of Microsoft Money, the location for Windows Page file, the Scratch file for Photoshop CS5, plus others!

The provision of such a small SSD would not have been a problem for the manufacturer; however because these were not stock items, he advised that the cost saving would be small - only £20!

Given this, I decided to go for the 120 GB.

As you may have gathered, I know very little about SSD's, but I have read, that restoring the Operating System on to a SSD from an Acronis image on a SSD, is less likely to be problematic, than restoring the Operating System image from a HDD to a SSD ?????

I fully understand all of your other replies, except the last one; this will require some digesting!

Thanks, again (Sorry, if I appear a little, dim, but, as a retired Professional Engineer, who is well past his prime [late seventies], I am trying too keep pace with modern technology - not too successfully)

Brian

Brian Taylor wrote:

I have read, that restoring the Operating System on to a SSD from an Acronis image on a SSD, is less likely to be problematic, than restoring the Operating System image from a HDD to a SSD ?????

I think there is some confusion here.
First of all, the media on which the backup is stored has little to do with the chances of success of the backup, as long as the storage disk is recognized and accessible by the Acronis recovery CD (and to be honest, as long as you don't use DVD's to store your backups, since bugs seem to be plaguing that case ;-)
Second, you might have read that restoring the *image* of an HDD to and SSD might create problems. That is true in the area of disk alignment. To retain its performance advantage, an SSD has to be aligned. To check whether your SSD is aligned, launch msinfo32.exe, choose components, hardware, disks. Look at the first partition paragraph, last line. There is an offset number expressed in bytes. If that offset is divisible by 4096, your SSD is aligned. If an HDD has been formatted by a Windows XP installer, the offset will not be divisible by 4096. Starting with Vista and still true for Win7, the Windows installer on a blank disk will automatically create a 1MB offset on any blank disk (but the installer will not change the offset if you install Win7 on an existing partition that is not aligned -- for example if you upgrade from XP to Win7 and don't reformat the disk entirely, the Win7 installation will not be aligned). BTW, typically these more recent installers will create a system reserved partition (in the case of blank disk), then the C:\system partition.
To align an SSD that is not aligned, you can use some third party tools a posteriori, or you restore a disk backup partition by partition and leave a 1MB unused space before the first partition.

Again, Pat, I am most grateful for you advice/explanation!

Thank you

Brian

First, as I am responding at your request, I want you to understand that I do not own nor have I used an SSD disk so my detailed knowledge is limited to what  I have read.  I am not familiar with its cleaning and speed maintenance requirements.

I have ordered a new PC, with two SSD's, and would like to create an Acronis image of the operating system, using the Acronis recovery cd; specifically, on to the second SSD.

Currently, I have Acronis TIH 2011, Update 3, Build 6942, and I have ordered a new PC, with Windows 7(64 bit), two Solid State Drives (SSD's - both 120 GB Corsair Force 3) and a 1TB conventional hard drive!

The first SSD will be dedicated to my Operating System (OS), and I plan to use the second SSD, primarily, for backing up my operating system, using Acronis TIH! The conventional hard drive will be used for my personal data!

1. Verifying partition starting offset: From within Windows Starting Menu (Accessories/System Tools/ Sys Info/ You can tell if your Windows disk has a one megabyte starting offeset as per this illustration below.

You can also view the starting offset from inside  Acronis Recovery screen
as per this link. Links at the bottom of this page.

2. Partition starting offset: TrueImage 2011 and 2012 will both recognize the SSD disk as an SSD and will apply the proper 1 mb starting offset. This is a new feature of TI.

3. Compression: I would recommend that you just use the normal compression. Any extra gain in space conservation would be minimal, make the backup more difficult to read or increase the possibilit of corruption. Leave the compression at its default value.

4. The type backup that you want to use is a normal disk option backup (same as described in the Corsair guide). This is a backup which includes all partitions (hidden or non-lettered included) and includes everything on the disk. This backup can be done from both within Windows or from within the  TI Bootable media Recovery CD.  You can expect the size of the full and complete disk backup to be about 65-70% if your used disk space.

5. The type of restore that you would normally use would be a normal Disk option restore (same as per the Corsair Guide) which restores all partitions from the backup onto the disk of the same size.  As you are wanting the restored replacement or look identical to the original, this is why you need to backup all partitions and restore all partitons. If you are restoring due to difficulties, this would be the normal procedure. If you are simply bringing the drive C back up an earlier date, you can restore only the drive C partition. ALL RESTORES ARE DONE FROM WITHIN THE TI BOOTABLE RECOVERY CD. If restoring to a "cleaned" SSD, then be sure to checkmark the "Recover Disk Signature" option found either on the same screen where you select the target diskor the final screen before pressing the "Proceed" button.

6. Not sure as to why you wish to use the 2nd SSD to store your backup files.  Certainly, a restore would be somewhat faster but a restore should be done when booted from the TI Rescue CD so a restore will be slower than Windows.  A restore will not be a frequent chore so any speed issues should receive less considerations.  You may want to use a usb thumb drive or other usb methods to create a faster restore boot CD than the normal TI bootable CD-- such as a WinPE TI boot device.

7. Once you get your new PC, I would suggest you post a screen capture of your Windows Disk Management graphical view so we can see how your partitions are configured. There is no one single configuration.  This would enable us to see if any changes in instructions are needed.

8. One of the first things to do upon arrival of the PC is look the names assigned to each SSD. You will want each disk to have unique names (both are identical drives) so you can easily identify which is which when the drive letters are displayed differently from within the CD.  If new names are needed, an example might be Win7-SSD1-C  or Backup-D.

9. Also, be sure and create the Windows Recovery CD /DVD of your new install. Options to create such are probably in the Accessories/System tool folder.

10. Whether you TrueImage Bootable media will boot your new drives is something you will just have to wait and see. Bootable media Recovery CD is not unique to a specific computer.

Windows Sys Info Report-- partition starting offset for first disk which is disk 0.

Part 1 of 3 Revising display so different columns provide additional information.

Part 2 of 3 Checkmark all specific columns. Then highlight each entry and use the "Move up" option so all entries are sequenced as below.

Part 3 of 3 Revised column display so partition numbers sequence and start/end sectors are displayed.

View partition starting offset via the partition resizing option.

GroverH,

I am extremely grateful to you for responding so quickly, with your comprehensibly comments, and advice, which I will study, and follow when my new PC arrives, late January -- A great deal for me to digest!

Thank you so much!

Brian