Use of Clone vs Backup vs Clean Install

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I am about to purchase a new computer to replace one that died - a Surface Pro 4. I have an image backup for the old one and a recovery USB created by the MVP Advanced tool. I have not decided yet what machine to buy; in part it might depend on which is easiest to 'restore' to the same as my old Surface Pro. I have talked to Acronis Support and they tell me that to do an image recovery, the two machines must have an 'identical configuration'. Frankly I think I got the 'book' answer from Acronis so I thought I might get a more complete/more technical/better considered answer here.

FYI, I keep most of my data on a NAS; the only data I keep on the C: drive is Outlook data (though I would love to figure out how to put it on my NAS - MS Support seems clueless) and Adobe Premier Elements Catalogs, which they force me to keep on my C: but is easy to recover from the tib file.

With all that, I would appreciate your expert advice as follows:

1. Am I better off doing a clean install than recover the old install? It is a bigger job but I perceive there to be benefits.I retain all my old install files and S/N's so a re-install shouldn't be a problem.
2. What constitutes an 'identical configuration'? Even if I buy a new Surface Pro 7, it will have more RAM and a larger SSD, and a USB-C port, which the old one didn't have.
3. Since I don't have the old SSD to clone from, does that eliminate the possibility of using the Clone tool?

Thanks
Bob

Sat, 10/05/2019 - 16:23
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mvp
  1. Am I better off doing a clean install than recover the old install? It is a bigger job but I perceive there to be benefits.I retain all my old install files and S/N's so a re-install shouldn't be a problem.
  2. What constitutes an 'identical configuration'? Even if I buy a new Surface Pro 7, it will have more RAM and a larger SSD, and a USB-C port, which the old one didn't have.
  3. Since I don't have the old SSD to clone from, does that eliminate the possibility of using the Clone tool?

Bob, personally, a clean install with a new computer, especially if it comes already installed with Windows and configured correctly for all the included hardware components etc, would be my preference (and what I have done myself recently too!).

An 'identical configuration' may be an ideal scenario for migrating from an old computer to a new one, but it is not down to the amount of RAM, size of SSD or presence of USB ports as such.  The key components for a successful migration tend to be having similar hardware components and using the same SATA controller mode for disk drives, using the same edition of Windows OS, and booting using the same BIOS mode.

The Windows OS edition is required primarily to allow for activation on the new hardware but is helped by both computers having already been activated for that OS edition.  Edition = Home, or Pro etc.

The BIOS mode means both computers using UEFI / GPT or both as Legacy / MBR machines though the latter is become much less common with the majority of new computers being UEFI.

In terms of SATA controller mode, this is becoming more of a challenge if moving from a standard SATA drive to a new computer using a NVMe M.2 card drive, where the latter has an immediate requirement for UEFI along with RAID (normally).  There have been a number of topics posted in the forums for users just wanting to make this type of migration on the same computer without the added complexity of moving to new hardware too.

If you don't have the old SSD, then cloning is not going to be an option unless you first restore your backup to a spare disk drive of the appropriate size and type etc, which is really just adding in extra work.

Sat, 10/05/2019 - 16:55
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