Cloning Windows 8.1 os to new ssd but still use old HDD.
Recently my Sandisk Exresscache died and SD sent a 120gb SSD a sort of replacement. the trouble is my main drive is a 1tb with 350gb already full.
So transferring the whole drive is out of the question. What i am trying to find out is how do i clone and transfer just the OS and run it from the ssd while still been able to run programs fro my old drive as copying the whole lot would fill it up in no time. Sandisk say this is possible but instead of telling me how they have reffered me to Acronis, are they correct or are they just passing the buck?
My original drive is not failing, the Express cache only handled boot up priorities, i can not use the 120gb replacement as a main drive for everything as its capacity is paltry for my needs,
Here is the setup of my drives
Disk C is my regular main drive, Disk D is the 120GB SSD with a fresh install of 8.1, E is just an empty drive,
J is a rarely used install of Windows 10 as i have multiple boot options with bcdedit
i have no idea what I is for, possibly boot information as it has system volume information and recycle bin folders inside them, i also have 2 seperate external drives for storage but i don't think they are relevent here.
Graham, as far as I understand how the SanDisk ExpressCache / ReadyCache hardware solution worked, it just provided a way of enhancing the performance of your 1TB HDD drive by storing frequently used data on the 32GB ? cache SSD drive, therefore nothing was actually installed on this SSD.
To migrate any of the programs to work from the freshly installed Windows 8.1 on your 120GB SSD D: drive, you would need to reinstall those programs within that version of the OS even though you may point the installer to store the program files on your 1TB regular drive.
The drive I: looks to be a Microsoft System Reserved partition, normally 100MB in size where your boot configuration data is stored.
so it is possible and how? I woul like to transfer the os instead of a clean install.
Graham, the only way to transfer your OS from your 1TB HDD to your new 120GB SSD would be to first reduce the size of the OS & applications on that original drive, i.e. move all your Documents, Photos, Pictures, Music, Videos etc to another location / partition / drive and see if you can get the OS & programs to be less than 100GB - you still need to allow for free space on the SSD drive or else you will lose the benefits of using it.
You would need to backup the reduced sized OS on the 1TB disk and then restore this to the new SSD but you should do this using the Acronis Rescue Media outside of Windows, and should remove the 1TB disk and replace it with the SSD so that the restored OS - this will protect the original drive from being touched by any of the recovery actions and pevent any problems caused by trying to boot the computer with 2 copies of the same OS on different drives.
Once you have Windows 8.1 booting OK on the SSD, then you can format the 1TB disk and re-install this to use as a data drive in the computer.
So basically i'm limited to 120gb? that is not an option, the the data i have for all the programs i have would quickly fill that thing, but i'll give it a try.
is there a tutorial on how to do this since i am new? i want to be able to run them from the SSD but store there folders in the original drive.
As is, your option is to continue using your drives "as is" - replacing your failed 32GB SSD with the larger 120GB SSD and using it as a caching drive as was originally designed in your setup.
1) Caching SSD's are not intended to be full hard drives - they are small SSD's used to "boost" larger hard drive performance by acting as the cache. 120GB is OK for some users with very mininal data and applicaitons, but you're well beyond that with 350GB in use.
2) Your bios may or may not allow the caching SSD SATA port to be used as a regular SSD - consult your user manual or contact the vendor for confirmation. Some bios allow the caching to be disabled and used as a regular SATA port, some do not.
3) You'll never be able to transfer a larger amount of DATA to a smaller drive that doesnt' have room to house it. As Steve mentioned, you would have to whittle things down from your existing 350GB to under 120GB. Even then, if you fill an SSD completely, (especially, small cheap ones), it will run like garbage - slower than your spinning drive - at most, consider 100GB of usable space on the 120GB drive especially since only about 110GB will be usable to beging with.
4) What you want to do is not supported in the forum or Acronis. It's doable, but you're scope creeping waaaay beyond Acronis as an application. You have options such as simply moving usable data like photos, pics, videos to another drive and then creating shortcuts to those folders - that would be the easiest and probably ideal for someone who does not understand the requiremens of the Windows OS and user/profiles. Regardless of what you find on the net as a solution for your needs, if you only have just these 2 drives to work with, it just isn't going to happen do to the size constraints as there's no way you're going to be able to image 350GB "as is" and fit it on a 120GB drive.
5) Cloning will never work with your setup using a caching SSD and hard drive - that is a dynamic disk. Dynamic disks are not supported for cloning. You would have to create a backup and restore the image. Regardless the restore must be able to fit on any disk the data is being restored to.
https://kb.acronis.com/content/56634 - Only basic disks can be cloned with Acronis True Image. You cannot clone dynamic disks.
There are videos in the above links that explain the "basic" clone process, but since you have a dynamic disk setup, cloning isn't an option. You need to do backup and restore. I'd suggest checking out some of the videos here to see the step by step processes.
Sticky: Great Acronis "How-To" videos and other Acronis Resources
Ultimately, if you want to move to an SSD - ideally, you would need a 500GB SSD to support this and you'd need to be able to break the dynamic cache setup in the bios prior to that. Then take a full disk backup. Then restore the full disk backup to the SSD and call it a day.
Otherwise, your option, if you can remove enough "soft" data to somewhere else temporarily, and could break the caching setup in the bios, you could backup the current hard drive (assuming it's down to about 100GB or less) and then restore the backup to the 120GB SSD. Then just store the soft data on the second drive and use shortucts to get to it easily on the second drive.
My Regular drive is 1tb not 350, as i have said before i only want to move the os to the ssd, ie have program shortcuts displayed on the desktop
but storing them on my original drive as 120gb is pitiful amount. i don't want to reboot in order to use an application thats on my larger drive.
Graham, sorry but not sure how else to say the same advice, you cannot use ATIH to just move your OS to the SSD drive, it is all or nothing in this respect.
So basically i have a useless piece of plastic sitting in my PC. half a mind to take it back to them and make them eat it.
Anyways thank you for responding and trying to help, I think in the future it will be time for a Hybrid drive.
Graham, the 120GB SSD doesn't have to be 'useless' - it is a matter of how you want to use it.
You could certainly do a clean install of Windows 8.1 on the SSD which will fit very easily as a vanilla OS, then you can start reinstalling your key applications one by one and then seeing which ones will allow you to change the default installation path from being C:\Program Files to be a different location on our original 1TB drive.
I would suggest partitioning the 1TB drive to make a separate area for installing your applications to work with your new clean OS install on the SSD.
That means i would have less space to play with, in either scenario i would be limited to less than my 1tb, espacially if most of them require install on the SSD.
Graham, the only other options that you look to have here are:
Contact SanDisk and ask if you can trade up the 120GB SSD for a larger drive, i.e. more like 500GB.
Assuming the 120GB SSD is a direct replacement for the original 32GB SSD that was installed, then install or configure the SanDisk ExpressCache software to use that 120GB drive in the same way that the original 32GB drive was used and you should get improved performance given the new SSD is roughly 4 times the size of the original caching drive.
Final option, replace your 1TB HDD with a new larger SSD or SSHD drive of equivalent capacity - but this is also the most expensive option probably.
Not even a 500gb would cut it, remember i have 1tb drive, plus i have spoken to Sandisk and they have said that the matter is closed!
I have made myself quite clear to them about my opinion in the live chat.
YOu'd only need a drive that can is capable of fitting the current amount of data - if you have 320GB in use of a 1TB drive, you could backup and restore that to a 500GB drive and it would fit fine. If you're using more than 500GB, then you'd need a bigger drive.
Even though, it's really none of my business, I think SanDisk did their part. You bought a computer with a small caching SSD drive and and a hard drive that work in conjucntion with each other as part of the accepted configuratoin you purhcased. They replaced the failed caching SSD with a new and even larger one so that you could continue with your originally purchased configuration. I'd have to agree that as far as their concerned, the case is closed in that regard.
SSD's cost more than spinning drives and that's why there are usually options to pick different hard drived configurations when you purchase. I wouldn't expect that any PC manufacturer would not be willing to just replace drives with larger SSD's, as that would not be economical from a business standpoint.
For your own future purchases, I would recommend staying away from SSHD's. They don't perform anywhwere near their ratings in real world usage. Often times, due to the small cache provided, the cache gets backed up and the disk is left to perform at the spinning rate, which is often only 5400RPM on many of the SSHD's (although 7200RPM is more common these days). If you really want performance, getting a nice, SSD - 250GB or 500GB can be $70- $120) and putting the OS and applications on it and then using a spinning drive to house basic data like documents, movies, pictures, music to get the best of both worlds with a speedy fast OS and applications on an SSD and cheaper/larger storage for your independent data.
Well here's the point, i want the capacity to store the programs data on the regular HDD, but be able to store their shorts cuts on the ssd OS.
i do not want to be faffing about having to uninstall or reboot because the software is on the other drive, if i'm able to use the SSD as a caching drive
if that is possible then how do i achieve that?
just to be clear the 32gb did not store anything, it was just caching stuff, the new can not do that. nor has it the capacity to store my data.
so in fact they have done me a diservice.
just to clarify i live in the UK, you need need convert that to pound sterling :)
Graham, given the pound to dollar to euro exchange rates since the Brexit vote, any conversion is pure guesswork and from my own experience the prices that Rob quoted now are often shown as the same in sterling when I look on Amazon.co.uk.
I tend to buy hardware either from Amazon here in the UK or else from Ebuyer.com and have done so for some years.
To repeat what I posted earlier today: Assuming the 120GB SSD is a direct replacement for the original 32GB SSD that was installed, then install or configure the SanDisk ExpressCache software to use that 120GB drive in the same way that the original 32GB drive was used and you should get improved performance given the new SSD is roughly 4 times the size of the original caching drive.
You should already have the SanDisk ExpressCache software installed or available as I wasn't able to find this being offered on the SanDisk website which suggests that this is no longer being provided with newer products.
Sandisk have told me it is not an Expresscache.
I'm not sure how using the main hard drive and putting shorcuts to the SSD would do any good. They would just be shortcuts to the data that really lives on the original spinning hard drive. That would do nothing for performance.
When using an SSD for caching, it is done in the background - it's supposed to act/appear as one drive (your main spinning hard drive) to the Operating system for all intensive purposes where the user interacts with the Operating System.
What it's doing is using the speedier flash memory of the SSD to speed things up with seeking, read and write so that the prep work happens on the faster SSD and transfers to the spinning drive faster.
https://www.maketecheasier.com/everything-need-know-ssd-caching/
Just to update i have taken the plunge and cloned my OS and transfered it to the SSD, with the larger drive as a storage drive and i can say it was not the painfull experience i though it would be, with a little help from a Youtube video.
If this new job goes as long as i hope i plan to upgrade to a hybrid.
Glad it worked out smooth. It all boils down to bios settings and firmware for a lot of folks, and gets a little more complicated when people want to use RAID, but it varies from system to system. Once you know what works (or what needs to be tweaked on your own), it's pretty easy to repeat so you should be in good shape!
Personally id stay away from the hybrid drives for the OS. They are no where near an SsD in performance. I avoid them and stick to a decent sized ssd for the OS and standard drives for storage. To each there own, but I have found hybrid drives to be pretty disappointing.