Cloning advice please

Alan, welcome to these user forums.

Acronis can migrate your laptop from the existing disk configuration to your intended new disk configuration, but you cannot use Cloning to do this, as this does not support RAID disk configurations.

Please see forum post: 128231: [IMPORTANT] CLONING - How NOT to do this!!! which deals with this type of migration and subject plus has pointers to other useful KB document resources.

In principle, you should make a full disk & partitions backup of your current system - this is assuming that your RAID set presents as a single disk drive to the Acronis software.

You then need to create the Acronis Rescue Media - I would recommend creating the Windows PE version using the MVP Tool offered for this purpose - see post: 127281: MVP Tool - CUSTOM ATI WINPE BUILDER - this can inject the additional device support for your RAID configuration.

The next step is to test that you can boot your laptop from the WinPE Rescue Media and see your internal disk drives plus an external drive holding your full backup image.  The media should be booted the same as your Windows 10 OS does, i.e. if Windows uses the EFI bootloader, the Rescue Media should do the same.

If all the above is looking good, then shutdown the laptop, remove the current drives and replace with your new SSD drives.   If necessary take any actions to create the RAID set, then boot the Rescue Media and Restore your backup to the new drives.

See post: 128057: [Tutorial] How to recover an entire disk backup for an example of a full disk restore using the Rescue Media.  Note: you may need to resize your partitions following the restore - Acronis can automatically resize to grow the partitions on a larger disk or you can restore 'as is' then resize later.

Thanks Steve.

Apologies, re-reading my original post I see I did not make one thing clear. When I switch to the SSD installation, I intend to dispense with the RAID configuration and have a normal setup. (The RAID was presumably a throwback to the days when SSDs were smaller and it was a way of presenting one large 1.5TB contiguous disk.)

Presumably in your post above, that would make the paragraph "You then need to create ...... for your RAID configuration" superfluous?

Thanks

Alan

Alan,

What OS do you have at present?  If you leave the bios SATA mode as RAID (despite not having a RAID setup anymore), you should be fine with recovering directly to the new SSD without having to use an actual RAID configuraiton anymore.

However, be advised, you cannot just switch from RAID to AHCI in the bios and vice versa on most systems - particularly if using Windows 7 or XP.  Windows 8.1 generally handles this better and Windows 10 usually handles this pretty well.  However, you should still prep the OS while it's bootable, before making the SATA mode switch in the bios and then immediately make a final backup and restore to the new drive after making the bios SATA mode change and befofe the OS is booted up.  Otherwise, changing the SATA mode will result in a BSOD.  

Before you do anything though, make sure you have a good full backup - just in case!!!  If you plan to swithc the SATA mode from RAID to AHCI, after you have a good backup "as is"...

Option 1.  From the currently working OS, modify the registry to prep the drivers for the SATA mode change. Then power off, take another full image and restore the image to the new single drive (making sure not to boot the OS in the process yet).  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/922976/error-message-occurs-after-you-change-the-sata-mode-of-the-boot-drive

OR

Option 2.  From the currently working OS, you can edit the BCD to force a safeboot which will load minimal drivers and load the required ones from Windows for AHCI.  http://triplescomputers.com/blog/uncategorized/solution-switch-windows-10-from-raidide-to-ahci-operation/ (take note of the comments that you want to make sure you have a local account/password if you're using a Windows livemail or hotmail account for your login, or you may not be able to log in once you are in safeboot mode.)

Hi Bobbo

Thanks for that. I'm using Win 10 Pro. The only changes will be 1. swap over from HDD to SDD and 2. get rid of RAID, switch to AHCI in the process.

I'd simplistically thought of it as 3 basic steps:

1. take "copy/copies" of both C and D drives

2. swap out HDDs for SDDs and switch over to AHCI on boot

3. reinstall "copy/copies" of both drives, if necessary adjusting drive size of D at the end

The implications of trying to reinstall an "copy" of Win 10 originally set up on RAID (with associated drivers) onto a new hardware lineup that will be AHCI hadn't just occurred to me! Doh! Good point, thanks.

I've decided that, in the circumstances, I think I'll do a clean install of Windows. Obviously, before I do this I can do a backup of my data on D drive and restore that once the new setup is in place.

AAMOI, I get the picture that there are different ways of achieving a "drive copy"/"clone"/"backup", call it what you will - one is by copying over and replicating files and folders, the other is to take a sector by sector copy of the drive. But one thing is puzzling me.  In the various links given above, reference is made to "cloning" essentially being a "one time shot" (my words). Is "cloning" a "destructive process", i.e. the files being MOVED rather than copied over. My understanding of "cloning" is that you're taking a backup image of a drive and copying that image over - in the case of the original drives they would be untouched! ?? Or am I wrong?

Thanks

Alan

Backup/restore is a full disk or parition image that can be used to restore the imaged content to another hard drive.  It's not really a copy, but in a sense, you can equate it to that.  However, it's at the block/sector level, where a copy in Windows is at the file level.  If you were to actually try to copy and paste all content from drive 1 to drive 2 via Windows, the resulting drive with the copeied data is not going to boot and probably not going to have everything you'd expect either (due to file name limitations in Windows - 240 characters max, persmissions, files being in use, not accounting for changing items that are actively in use, not copying the hiddent partitions like the system partition and/or recovery paritions, etc.).

Sector by sector is a backup/restore process that grabs the entire disk content, bit-by-bit... to include blank or unused space on the drive.  Normally, a backup will only include the used space which makes the process faster and gives you only the actual content on disk when transferred to the new one.  As an example... a normal backup of a 500GB drive that only has 100GB of used space on it, will only grab the 100GB of data and transfer that.  Even so, the new disk, with this replicated data will look, feel and act just like the original.  On the other hand, if Sector by sector is chosen, it will backup and restore all 500GB of the drive and have the same results as a non-sector by sector backup, but will take much longer to copy the unused space (which may contain remnants of older files that were deleted or paritially written over by new data).  Sector by sector is generally not needed or desired unless the disk has bad sectors or blocks on it and needs to rever to sector by sector to try and get through them. I've never opted to do sector-by-sector for my personal use or in my business - there are very few scenarios, where you'd need or want to - other than perhaps an exact duplicate for chain of custody or something like that.

Clone is an "on the fly" method to duplicate disk 1 to disk 2.  In a sense, the results will be similar to the backup and restore method, but without the backup.  It can be destructive if things don't go well, but is generally safe.  However, there is that potential... say you accidetnally clone from new to old instead of from old to new - oops, you now have 2 blank drives.  Others have had issues with cloning because they started from Windows and the bootloader got overwritten, but Acronis couldn't start (usually due to things like driver compatibilty, drive having encryption so it was locked, or unsupported RAID controllers).  You can avoid potential issues, by always starting a clone and/or disk recovery  (backup is fine to start and use in Windows) with your rescue media since it leaves the original disk completely alone during the process.  This is my most MVP's will always recommend using the rescue media instead of trying to start a clone or recovery these processes from Windows.  For those that do like to clone, a backup is still a good idea - just in case.  If things do go bad with a clone, you would still be able to attempt to recover from your backup.  

https://kb.acronis.com/content/56634

If you are going to do system disk cloning, we recommend that you do it using Acronis Bootable Media. 

Even when you start cloning in Windows, the computer will reboot into the Linux environment the same as when booting from the rescue media. Because of this, it is better to clone using rescue media. For example, there may be a case when your hard disk drives are detected in Windows and not detected in Linux. If this is the case, the cloning operation will fail after reboot. When booting from the rescue media, you can make sure that Acronis True Image detects both the source and target 

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#21822.html

• What is the best way to migrate the system to a new disk: cloning or backup and recovery? - The backup and recovery method provides more flexibility. In any case, we strongly recommend to make a backup of your old hard disk even if you decide to use cloning. It could be your data saver if something goes wrong with your original hard disk during cloning. For example, there were cases when users chose the wrong disk as the target and thus wiped their system disk. In addition, you can make more than one backup to create redundancy and increase security.
• Could you tell me how to clone: in Windows or after booting from the rescue media? Even when you start cloning in Windows, the computer will reboot into the Linux environment the same as when booting from the rescue media. Because of this, it is better to clone under rescue media. For example, there may be a case when your hard disk drives are detected in Windows and not detected in Linux. If this is the case, the cloning operation will fail after reboot. When booting from the rescue media, you can make sure that Acronis True Image detects both the source and target disks before starting the cloning operation.

Thank you, Bobbo, superb explanation.

I'll do a backup of my D drive, swap out the HDDs and switch to AHCI, followed by a clean install of Windows and the various apps I need, and finally a restore of the D drive.

Kind regards

Alan

Good deal.  If you havent' already started the fresh build, it wouldn't hurt to try restoring a backup "as is" and attempting to convert from RAID to AHCI - Windows 10 is pretty good with handling this and might just work.  If not, you can try a safeboot (F8 if you have the bios option - or you may need to let it fail to boot 3 times before the option shows up as new feature in Windows 10).  

Worth a shot just to see how it goes, if you're up for trying it out.  You can definitely switch from RAID to AHCI or AHCI to RAID, it just takes some tinkering, but having Windows 10 instead of an older OS already puts you in better shape for success.

Also, again, you might be able to just leave the SATA mode as RAID and be on your merry way.  There's nothing wrong with using RAID for a one drive setup, especially if using an PCIE NVME drive, where it's recommended to get the full potential out of the disk. You may be getting full marks on stress tests, but those don't show the limitatinos of queue depth as they are synthetic and really only show the performance of sequential read/write, when it's really 4K (random read/write that is the true peformance of the drive's capabilities). Will a home user really notice, not really, but if you do video rendering, or use tools like Adobe Illustrator or AutoCad, or modelling software, these extra benefits can relate to time saved and better performance. 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7843/testing-sata-express-with-asus/4

Source: Intel

The biggest advantage of NVMe is its lower latency. This is mostly due to a streamlined storage stack and the fact that NVMe requires no register reads to issue a command. AHCI requires four uncachable register reads per command, which results in ~2.5µs of additional latency.

Thanks Bobbo

I haven't started the HDD/SDD swapover yet, that will happen when I get back home to the UK in one month's time. All I'm doing right now is preparatory homework, so I can order the relevant SDDs when I get back and know exactly what my plan of action will be.

I'm afraid NVME is not an option for me, only SATA so the plan is to have a Samsung Evo 850 250GB as a boot drive and a Samsung Pro 850 2TB as the data drive. That way I can expand significantly on the 1.5TB offered by the existing RAID setup (as I take lots of photos in Canon RAW format when I am away from the UK). RAID is also a non-starter because of the proposed SSDs, in any case the only reason MSi offered that with my laptop because they could use 2*750GB HDDs and make it look like a single 1.5TB drive. I've already had one of the HDDs fail (under warranty) and fortunately I was in the UK so I didn't lose any data but the RAID0 has been a constant concern from a data loss viewpoint. Although I backup to an external hard drive when I am away from home, a HDD failure would render my laptop useless, unable to do e-mails, browsing, not to mention processing my photos. So the sooner I am able to get away from RAID the better AFAIAC! ;-)

I'll stick with doing a clean install as outlined above, because it will give me a chance to clean up my setup while I'm doing the SSD switch and have a fresh start.

I just want to thank you and the other volunteers for the splendid advice on here. Although I'm pretty PC-savvy (apart from laptops, I've built every PC I've had in the last 25 years) this PC is the only one that's been in a RAID configuration, so it's been a very useful and informative learning curve for me.

Thanks again and best wishes

Alan

PS I wish there was a system in the board where we could show our appreciation to posters!:-)

Happy to help.  I learn a lot here too and that makes it fun for me.  Sounds like you have a good plan and a nice setup.  As long as you're taking good backups, you shouldn't have any need for the RAID, especially if it's RAID 0.  You'll get better real-world performance out of both those SSD's by themselves and hopefully some better reliability moving away from the mechanical drives.  

No worries about the recognition - always nice to help someone who's appreciative.