SSD backup

[quote=Jerry Alexander]

I'm installing a new SSD and reading a lot about alignment of these drives. Will I have any issues with my Acronis TI Home 2010 either in maintaining alignment or other issues?

Probably yes. 2010 makes it harder to make sure you have a 1MB offset before the first partition when you restore. The workaround is to create the target partitions with DISKPART, ensuring the right offset, and then restore one partition at a time to the pre-created partitions.

I am only using the SDD for OS so will only format to one partition using Diskpart to partition.

When you install Win 7 from a blank disk, the default is to create a hidden system reserved partition that is active and contains the boot files. If you prepartition your disk and then install Win 7 on that partition, it will be the active partition and contain the boot files. If you go that route, you will have issues if you need to use Bitlocker on your system.

In case of a future problem with the SSD I want to be able to remove it from the system and make the first partition of the HDD (my data drive) the active primary, to which I will restore drive C:. This will get me back up and running quickly.

Can I go ahead and partition the HDD making the first partition a "primary" but not active, telling the BIOS to boot from the SSD? If an issue pops up and I make the switch to the SSD as a boot drive what's the easiest way to make it's primary partition "active".

You lost me. I thought you would like to move your OS to the HDD if the SSD fails. Your sentence above suggests you switch to the SSD. Did you mean HDD?
If yes, you can restore your SSD image to that primary partition on the HDD. Remember that will erase that Primary partition completely. So you would have to create an empty partition big enough to receive the SSD image on the HDD, maybe 2 partitions if you have a system reserved partition and a C:\system partition on the SSD. Since if is a different disk, it is possible that you will have to repair the computer startup with the Windows installation DVD.

thanks for advice

I am using Diskpart to enable my installation without the System Reserve Partition as I want the first SSD partition to be active and contain everything including the boot files. I don't intend to use bitlocker. I use TrueCrypt but only encrypt certain files, not the entire partition.

If I understand what you are saying I would not need to be concerned about the 1MB partition (on the SSD) for correct offset if I originally installed as above, then cloned to the HDD, then reinstalled to the SSD making sure I had partitioned it with Diskpart? By the way, would it be best to clone the SSD or image it to the HDD? I've always used TI for imaging and have had no problems reinstalling to HDD's.

Sorry about my mistake in the last paragraph. I was talking about switching to and booting from the HDD if problem arises with SSD. I would not restore to the HDD, but would clone the SSD partition to the HDD in advance so that it will be ready to go if I have problem with SSD.

I sure hope this makes sense. It may just take some trial and error on my part to find out what will work.

OK makes sense.

Yes, to confirm, create your 1MB offset with Diskpart, and then restore the partition to that partition, mark it primary active upon restore on the SSD or on the HDD.

I recommend you do an image, not a clone. Much more flexible and practical.

Do the restore from the CD.

As you test your boot on the HDD, make sure you remove the SSD before booting on the HDD. Once it works, put the SSD back in, boot on it and veriy the computer behaves correctly.

Sounds easy enough but let me ask one more detail question. When creating the 1MB offset (on the SSD) with Diskpart, I assume it will assign it as C: since it is the first partition. Then when I create the large partition to place the OS to it will assign that as D:.

I would think you would always want to have the OS and program files on C: just for convenience so it looks like (using Drivemanager) it might be advantageous to reassign the 1MB partition to another drive name and then mark the large partition as C:. Any problem with that?

Also when you say "restore from CD" I store my C: image on one of the HDD partitions drive D:. So I had planned to image the SSD to HDD drive D:, then in an emergency boot with the TI CD, then restore the image from HDD drive D: to HDD drive C:. Apparently no need to worry about the 1MB offset on the HDD. I never have before.

thanks for your help!!

Check out the diskpart technical description here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465%28WS.10%29.aspx

When you create the partition C:\. you can enter the offset parameter:

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0 (if 0 is the right disk)
clean (this erases everything on the disk!). Not a SATA secure erase (the one you need to bring the performance of your SSD back after a while)
create partition primary size= (in megabytes, optional) offset= 1024
list partition
select partition 1
active
assign letter=C
exit

For some reason I was thinking of the offset as a partition. Obviously it is just as named, simply an offset space in MB(s). I'll follow the above syntax for Diskpart and I'm sure things will be fine.

Much thanks

I edited my post above to specify the offset (which is not optional in the case of a SSD)

Thanks. My understanding that the offset will align partition C: as well as any others that you create on an SSD. In all my years of dealing with spindle HDD's I've never heard of alignment being an issue. Have you? Could also be that older versions of Windows wrote to smaller blocks and it really did not make that much difference.

There were reasons to align HDD in RAID, to optimize performance.

With SSD, the difference is dramatic. THis has to do with the operations the disk controller has to do when reading/writing to locical sectors, themselves mapped to memory blocks on the SSD.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html