Can I make an image of a HDD and restore it to a SSD?

Yes, you can transfer from HDD to SSD. I have it done a few times already ;-)

Here some instructions:

- Boot your computer on your current disk

- Use Windows disk management to verify that the active partition is on the system disk (right click on the computer icon on your desktop, choose manage, storage, disk management).

- In the menu of the Windows disk management, choose view, top, list disks. Note whether your current disk is an MBR or a GPT disk.

- Print a screen shot of the disk management console for future reference

- Uninstall any program you don't want on the SSD (eg: games, ). You need to make sure that the spaced used on the partitions you are going to backup will be of a much lower total size than the available space on your SSD minus 10% (see below about the 10%)

- Do a full backup of your current disk. Include all partitions, even the hidden ones (no need to use the sector by sector setting). At restore time, we can leave some user-created content partitions out to fit the SSD if required. If space is a concern, you can exclude some file types (eg videos, pictures, movies, etc.).

- Put your SSD at the same spot at your current disk. Remove your current disk from the computer for the time being.

- Boot your computer on the Acronis recovery CD

- In the Acronis tools, choose add new disk. Initialize your disk as GPT if your OLD disk was GPT, as MBR if it was MBR.

- Restore each partition at a time in the same order they were laid out (use your screen shot). This will allow to control resizing and offset to align the disk

- Leave a 1MB space before the first partition (maybe system reserved?)

- Mark the correct partition active (maybe system reserved?). If your disk was GPT, this doesn't apply.

- Leave the drive letter change option alone

- Do not resize any partition except the C:\system partition or any partition you created and want on the SSD

- Make sure that each partition has a size that is a whole number of MB (doesn't matter for the last partition)

- ideally for the last partition, you could leave about 10% of your SSD unallocated. This is optional to maintain SSD performance. Hence the 10% mentioned above. Note that most users just use all the SSD space they can. No big deal if you do the same.

- No need to reboot inbetween partition restores

- After the last partition, restore the MBR+track0 and the disk signature. This doesn't apply for GPT disks.

That's it.

Reboot on your new SSD. Then, if you want to use your old disk, put it back in the computer, reboot. Delete whatever you want, etc.
You have some tweaks to optimize your SSD:
- disable automatic defragmentation of that disk
- optionally, disable indexing on the disk (not a big deal)
- disable the superfetch service (Vista, Win7, Win8), and prefetch (XP)
- leave the page file on the SSD
- verify that TRIM is activated if you have Win7 or Win8 http://www.ghacks.net/2010/09/14/verify-that-trim-is-enabled-in-windows…

If the laptop is new, replacing the drive is easy. You do not need Acronis. Use the original recovery utility that comes with any notebook. With it, create recovery disks (DVD or USB-flash). Then replace the HDD to SSD. After this, boot from the recovery disc #1 and follow the instructions. That's it.
(If that fails, you can install the old HDD and boot from it.)
Regards.

Dimonira wrote:

If the laptop is new, replacing the drive is easy. You do not need Acronis. Use the original recovery utility that comes with any notebook. With it, create recovery disks (DVD or USB-flash). Then replace the HDD to SSD. After this, boot from the recovery disc #1 and follow the instructions. That's it.
(If that fails, you can install the old HDD and boot from it.)
Regards.

Well, the idea is that I'm going to be using it for a couple weeks so I want to be able to pick up right where I left off.

Thanks Pat, I'll give it a whirl.

Ghostrider

Pat L wrote:

- Make sure that each partition has a size that is a "whole number" of MB (doesn't matter for the last partition)

Pat,
I forgot to make a few of my OS partitions a "whole number" when I did your procedure, but after doing your procedure above (which worked fine thanks) and then checking on AS SSD it's showing green (1024K OK) which I assume means aligned, so it has me wondering should I go back and re-do your procedure again and as I restore setting each OS partition size to a ''whole number''. (I remember seeing the resize slider options to do in TI2013 when I was doing the partition restores, it was at 30.3 GB and I had meant to toggle it down to 30 even, but forgot till afterwards; I did two OS partitions that way)

Anyway my OS's seems fine though afaict and I'm posting on it now.

My Question is:
Why is it important to set each partition size to a "whole number"?

I can Easily go back and do it again no problem, because I want it to be right.

Also should AS SSD be showing 1024 OK or should it be 2048 OK? (I have Windows 7 & Windows 8)

Thank you!

Note that I was talking about a number of megabytes, not gigabytes. The reason is the same as with the first partition's offset.

So, the offset of *each* partition must be divisible by 4 when expressed in KB (1024bytes) or by 4096 when expressed in bytes (which is the same). This is not a question of whether the partition is for the OS or not. It is only a question of the read/write disk performance.

Why not choose 4KB as the offset then? Well, read on...

The offset must also be divisible by the NAND erase block size, which is typically 512KB. So any offset smaller than 512KB could get you into trouble if you have a typical SSD...

Finally, 1024KB is chosen by default because it meets the previous conditions and the last one: it can be easily divided by most of the strip sizes in RAID configuration (64KB, 128KB, 256KB), as well by the less frequent strip sizes of 512KB and 1024KB.

So, there you have it. The minimum recommended offset for the first partition is 1024KB, and multiple of this will work just fine also!

If the first partition has an offset of 1024KB and each partition has a size that is a multiple of 1024KB (ie a whole number of MEGAbytes), then each partition will have an offset of a multiple of 1024KB...

Edit,

I came back and removed all my questions in this post since after a day of research and play I think my questions were all over the place and in some sense you answered them already.

That's okay though that I asked them, because I was learning about it, and still am.

After a day of testing and playing around, I'm all aligned, All SSD partitions and even did my HDD and all it's partitions too even though I probably didn't need to, but a few programs below prompted all the HDD partitions were misaligned so I just did them all anyway.
I came across a few neat little programs along the way, one was even free and only a 7 MB install, and it does all partition Alignments among other things - I tested and it works well and automatically aligns partitions via a right click> advanced> partition alignment....it was AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition 5.5 ...I've never heard of them before today, and works excellent, for free.
I then tested Paragon Alignment Tool v4.0 Professional which was Not Free, but worked a real treat too and I like the GUI since at one glance you can see all the partitions if they are in alignment or not - and click to fix them automatically, my screenshot is showing After I aligned them using it and they are all green color scheme now, but before I did it they were mostly all gold meaning not aligned as shown in its Legend color scheme chart. It was fun to play and I learned alot.

Attached are some screens that are self explanatory, anyway looks like I'm all set.

Thanks again.

(edit: removed screens)