Cloning M.2 NVMe SSD (System Disk)?
Been using Acronis TI 2014-2016 for quite a while, but when I upgraded my system disk (win 10) to a Samsung 950 Pro (M.2 - NVMe/PCIe) drive, Acronis can no longer clone my system disk. I had to stop using Acronis a the beginning of this year, and thought I would check to see if True Image now supports ths kind of config. Anyone have any info on this would be appreciated. I know there was some discussion at the time that made it sound as if Acronis knew about this issue, and was working on it. Thanks!!
Robert,
I have the same disk on a recent motherboard and ATI 2016 latest build supports it without any issue. Good luck!
Yes, no issues with NVME drives as of 2016 build 6559. What is your media version #?
Is your SATA mode for that drive set to RAID or AHCI? What is the manufacturer and model # of your computer?
As for CLONE (vs backup and recovery)... Clone has many more limitations than backup and recovery. One, I don't think you can "clone" a PCIE NVME drive to a SATA drive - different hardware / different interfaces - possibly different sector sizes - are you trying to clone to another NVME drive or a SATA drive? I never tried cloning from my SATA to the NVME drive when I upgraded, but I had no problem backing up the SATA drive and restoring to the NVME afterwards. This may be the way you need to go.
Thanks Folks! I may give it another try. The version I had (and I don't remember off the top of my head) was over a year old, and I removed it after it expired... and I couldn't get it to work with my configuration. I just got an offer for discount on Acronis from them, and may re-purchase it to get my cloning back up and running.. Thanks again!!!
Bobbo, are you saying you 'backed up' your NVME drive to the SATA and then 'restored' the SATA back to the NVME afterwards? Or are you saying you just went from SATA to NVME? I'm interested in NVME but I was hoping for an easy 'clone' type (or restore) operation using an easy SATA interface in case something happens. I have been doing this with SATA SSD to SATA SSD (even through a USB connection) and back again, but as I start to venture into NVMe drives, I'm wondering what is a convenient backup solution equivalent to 'cloning'? Thanks for any input.
PMM, I cloned my SATA drive to my NVMe drive (destination). But the version of True Image that I had at the time could not clone the NVMe drive (as the source) once I had my boot image up and running on the NVMe drive. I have been told that newer versions of True Image support NVMe cloning when it is the source drive. But the original clone TO the NVMe drive went just fine. I use the free version of Reflect to clone my NVMe drive (since I would have to purchase the new versions of True Image to do the same thing!) I'm cheap!! Regards.
FYI It's bobbl not bobbo :)
Robert,
Thanks. Do you know which 'new versions' of True Image can do that? I have True Image 2016 and was debating whether to upgrade to 2017. I'll have to look up 'Reflect'.
Also, does it matter (in going back and forth from NVMe to SATA) whether the NVMe drive is M.2, U.2, or PCIe slotted?
Regards,
-Peter
p.s. :-) , that other guys nickname shows up as :
Nickname: Bobbo_3C0X1 (looks like 'Bobbo' to me :-)
Peter, the latest build version of ATIH 2016 #6581 and 2017 #5554 both have support for NVMe drives etc - the key thing to consider with cloning these drives are to have the Windows PE Rescue Media created on USB stick with all the necessary device drivers to facilitate doing this type of action fully outside of Windows.
See post: 127281: MVP Tool - CUSTOM ATI WINPE BUILDER for a custom script to build the rescue media where this can include the Intel IRST drivers plus others that you may need to add, and do this easily. This works for the 2016 and 2017 versions of ATIH and uses the Windows 10 ADK for the PE component.
PS, MVP Bobbo = Rob.
I was told by Acronis TI support that 2016 and newer had support for cloning NVMe drives. I have 2015.
You might shoot support a message just to make sure. Once I found out I'd have to purchase a new
version of TI, I looked around for something that would work periodically when I needed it. Reflect
(free) does that.
??? Bobbo_3C0X1 not sure where that came from, I didn't specify that! lol
If that is the case, guess I'm not interested in TI until it can accomodate a clone without the need to utilize Win PE Rescue Media. Clones from other SATA HD and SSDs do not require any other tools to accomplish. I used to swap OS drive all the time without it.
Robert, the standard Acronis Rescue Media can also be used for cloning but has limitations based on the Linux kernel that is used in the media which can have issues with these newer types of drives.
Macrium Reflect defaults to using Windows PE for its media, so using the ATIH WinPE Rescue Media is a more direct comparison.
Personally, using the Rescue Media and doing this type of activity outside of Windows is a whole lot safer than doing the same from within Windows unless the two drives involved are not active / in use by Windows. Windows introduces many more factors that can cause problems when cloning, i.e. antivirus / security software, VSS being used for snapshot etc. We see too many users who have hit significant problems from attempting this within Windows, made 100% worse at times by having no valid backup from before doing so.
At the end of the day, this is a user forum, and as users ourselves, we would advise you to use whatever will work best for you in your system situation. I also use Macrium Reflect at times, plus have used Paragon, Symantec Ghost, Easeus ToDo, AOMEI Backupper and other similar programs for testing or when working on computers for friends who have no license for ATIH. Macrium Reflect Free is good software but has its own limitations, i.e. no exclusions can be set, only Differential backups can be created etc unless you pay for the full-fat product.
Bobbo, are you saying you 'backed up' your NVME drive to the SATA and then 'restored' the SATA back to the NVME afterwards? Or are you saying you just went from SATA to NVME? I'm interested in NVME but I was hoping for an easy 'clone' type (or restore) operation using an easy SATA interface in case something happens. I have been doing this with SATA SSD to SATA SSD (even through a USB connection) and back again, but as I start to venture into NVMe drives, I'm wondering what is a convenient backup solution equivalent to 'cloning'? Thanks for any input.
I've done both. I initially started with an SSD and took a full disk backup and restored it to my NVME PCIE drive. Have been using the system like that for over a year now without issue.
Recently, I wanted to backup and restore to a regular SATA drive as I only have (had - i picked up a cheap one from mydigitaldiscount based on a Tom's hardware review) one and was curious to know if it would work so I could be up and running if something happened to that drive. I first did a restore to the SSD - problems. I then did a clone to the SSD - problems. Ultimately though, found that it was an easy fix of going into safemode to "unlock" the disk that was somehow being locked when restoring to SSD. I still have an open support case for this though and am helping to determine why and try to find a fix so you don't have to go into safe mode first to unlock the drive before it boots up. It's easy to do now that I know, but it took me a long time to narrow down the specific issue and fix.
So long story short, you can go in either direction with backup/restore or clone when switching between SSD and PCIE NVME drives. However, if it does fail to boot (no device found message afterwards and you've done everything properly and verify the bios configs after the restore), chances are the disk is locked and booting into safemode is all you need. Enchantech doesn't have a locked drive issue like I do with his tests, so this may be unique to my gigabyte motherboard (z170X gaming 3 version 1.0 runninf f.20c firmware).
I also wanted to note that on my motherboard, it has IRST drivers baked into the firmware - Linux media worked fine for me because even though the SATA mode is RAID, I don't have an actual RAID set. I would, however, recommend using WinPE rescue media as Steve mentioend above for any sytems using an NVME PCIE drive that may have the bios set to RAID as well (most OEM are shipping systems with PCIE NVME in RAID mode to take advantage of deeper queue depths that are available in RAID mode since AHCI has a more shallow depth).
THanks Steve!
Thanks Bobo..!
A few comments:
Formfactor in this context does not matter. SATA, PCIe, M.2 U2 is irrelevant. As long as the device reports to the base OS correctly as a bonafiable storage device recovery to or clone of the device is possible.
The locked drive issue referred to here is an anomaly only found on some systems. Many thanks to Rob for discovering this so that it is now possible to offer a probable solution to users whom experience the problem.
Clone or recovery to a "live" disk (one that is booted" is a no no! Reason is that low level operations of recovery and clone can destroy data on a live disk. If you look closely at any product capable of low level disk operations you will find somewhere that it is always advised that a backup of the source disk be taken prior to such operation to provide a "safety net" in case data destruction does occur. Such destruction is in most cases caused by loss of power and that should be a tip to eveyone that power requirements of disks is critical so some connections are questionable when it comes to recovery and/or clone. PC case mounted USB ports or hubs attached to such ports in particular fit this category.
Hi, I'm not sure I understand but your post is one of several that have warned against cloning or recovery to a 'live' disk. Not sure what is meant by that. When I've cloned with Acronis True Image, it is usually to a SSD/HDD that will get formatted in the process, so everything is destroyed and it receives a copy of the source. This usually happens on a reboot, before the OS installs (or at least not in windows....unless you are cloning/copying a partition from say drive D to drive E), I suppose as a result of some script....after the cloning it shuts down, I disconnect one of them and restart the PC. What is the preferred way then? Thanks for any info.
He is talking about cloning from a booted OS (source) disk to another disk - or live disk. A clone done on a reboot before the OS loads is not a live copy, and is does not have files which are open in the OS. Clones done from an OS drive after it is booted will not be a valid clone, as some files which are open will not get recreated properly in the clone. I believe that the clones I do using Reflect actually us a "shadow copy" process to get around the live/open files. Not sure exactly of the techincal details/process.
A "Live" disk is one that is booted to a operating system. This includes an OS that runs entirely within RAM memory such as a Live Linux CD or a WinPE disk.
Robert Black is correct in that Macrium Reflect uses Shadow Copy Service to create a disk Clone.
True Image does not use shadow copy in clone creation. Instead, True Image performs a full disk bit for bit copy of one disk to another disk. I believe this includes unused file system space that exists on the source disk.
True Image performs this operation by taking the source disk offline and rebooting the machine into a Linux based OS running completely in memory. That fact alone makes the process of disk clone or OS disk recovery a risky operation. The risk comes in that this reboot of the machine may not complete successfully and end in a failed operation which can result in boot failure when the machine is then restarted. Once the machine is booted into this Linux environment then the clone operation is performed.
Because of the above operation procedure it is better with True Image to simply boot the machine into the Linux or optional WinPE recovery environment, setup the clone procedure, then run the clone. Same applies when you wish to restore a disk that contains a Windows operating system for the exact same reasons.
For OS system disk restore operations it is not possible to restore files in real time as they are in use by the operating system therefore it is necessary to take the disk offline and reboot the machine into a RAM memory Live OS instance to perform the operation. All imaging products use this approach.
OK, one last question....when you say you are able to clone from SATA SSD to NVMe drive, I suppose both are UEFI bios, correct? You can't clone an MBR SATA SSD to an NMVe (by definition has to be UEFI for NVMe), correct?
You can never clone MBR to UEFI - a clone is a clone - an exact copy.
If you want to change the boot type from MBR/Legacy to UEFI/GPT, you need to take a full disk backup. Then, boot your rescue media in UEFI mode and restore the image to the drive as this is the key to the conversion (how you boot your rescue media determines the restore layout... boot legacy for a legacy restore and boot UEFI for a UEFI restore). If you boot the rescue media in UEFI mode, it will convert the image from MBR to UEFI/GPT in the process.
That said...
I would only attempt this after verifying you're good to go with straight legacy to legacy transfer to your new NVME drive - one step at at time until you get that correct (in case you need to make tweaks to the bios, or boot safemode to unlock the disk, or even need to do a startup repair for some reason).
Then, once you know that is successful and can be repeated easily, you can go for the conversion from MBR/Legacy to UEFI and see how it goes. Chances are, you may need to go into the bios and verify the bootorder, that UEFI boot is enabled, etc and hopefully all goes well. If not, try safemode first and see if that helps. If not, then try a startup Windows repair as that may fix any issues that result from converting from MBR to UEFI. I've done the conversion a few times without issue on VM's, but on physical hardware, it can be a little more tricky due to how bios firmware is configured and/or needs to be tweaked to accept the conversion.
One last note, you can go from legacy/MBR to UEFI/GPT, but never the other way around - it will let you, but it's not going to boot.
I am not sure if the clone tool will convert an MBR bootable drive to an UEFI bootable drive. I have never tried but my gut feeling is it will not work.
Such a conversion is possible as an image restore operation as Rob points out.
In my statement concerning formfactor, it simply means that if source and destination disk can be selected then the clone tool will function as intended. If a device is not selectable or greyed out then there is an issue that is preventing the clone tool from running. There are a number of reasons that situation may be true.
OK, I'm a bit confused with the bolded part of your last statement. I can see 'cloning from NVMe to SATA SSD' as a clone, it will reflect the source drive and SATA SSD can accomodate either MBR or UEFI. BUT....in going the other way, NVMe can only accomodate UEFI (correct?), so if the source drive is MBR....it can't be cloned to an NVMe drive, correct? So that was my question....when going back and forth between these NVMe and SATA SSD's, do you have to already be on the same bios type (and since NVMe is only UEFI), then do they both have to be UEFI the cloning to work?
You can never clone MBR to UEFI - a clone is a clone - an exact copy.
If you want to change the boot type from MBR/Legacy to UEFI/GPT, you need to take a full disk backup. Then, boot your rescue media in UEFI mode and restore the image to the drive as this is the key to the conversion (how you boot your rescue media determines the restore layout... boot legacy for a legacy restore and boot UEFI for a UEFI restore). If you boot the rescue media in UEFI mode, it will convert the image from MBR to UEFI/GPT in the process.
That said...
I would only attempt this after verifying you're good to go with straight legacy to legacy transfer to your new NVME drive - one step at at time until you get that correct (in case you need to make tweaks to the bios, or boot safemode to unlock the disk, or even need to do a startup repair for some reason).
Then, once you know that is successful and can be repeated easily, you can go for the conversion from MBR/Legacy to UEFI and see how it goes. Chances are, you may need to go into the bios and verify the bootorder, that UEFI boot is enabled, etc and hopefully all goes well. If not, try safemode first and see if that helps. If not, then try a startup Windows repair as that may fix any issues that result from converting from MBR to UEFI. I've done the conversion a few times without issue on VM's, but on physical hardware, it can be a little more tricky due to how bios firmware is configured and/or needs to be tweaked to accept the conversion.
One last note, you can go from legacy/MBR to UEFI/GPT, but never the other way around - it will let you, but it's not going to boot.
PMM, please read the ATIH 2016 User Guide, in particular the following sections:
Migration method
Acronis True Image allows you to select a partition layout for a target disk after clone operation completion:
- MBR (Master Boot Sector) - a 512-byte boot sector, which is the first sector of a hard disk, used to hold a disk's primary partition table.
- GPT (GUID Partition Table) - a standard for a partition table layout for hard disks. GPT allows disks/partitions size up to 9.4 ZB (9.4 x 10^21 bytes).
Using this wizard you may convert your partitions layout while cloning operation or clone them as is, not changing the layout.
- Copy partitions without changes - select this option to migrate your system as is, not changing the partition layout. Note, in this case the disk space in excess of 2TB will be inaccessible.
- Copy partitions and use a disk as non-system, GPT style - select this option to convert your partition to a GPT layout.
With Acronis True Image you also can convert BIOS to UEFI systems.
For more information please see Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.