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Cloning laptop SSD boot drive using eSATA connection?

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Hi, new member here with my first question. I want to increase the size of my laptop’s SSD boot drive, but I’m no computer ‘expert’ by any means.

The Acronis instructions say NOT to clone my boot SSD drive from my laptop to a new SSD using usb, as Windows doesn’t support booting from usb drives, therefore to overcome this, can I use the laptop’s eSATA port instead as this would presumably treat the target disc as a system disc, and then just swap the old SSD for the new one?.

Also would it be prudent to do a ‘backup’ of my boot SSD first to another external hard drive first as a precaution?.

Thanks in anticipation

Steve

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Stephen,

If you are using the True Image 2018 product then you can successfully clone your disk via USB from within the Windows installed True Image application GUI.  For more information look HERE

Hi thanks for the reply, however this is the paragraph that concerned me,

”When you want to clone your system to a higher-capacity hard disk, we recommend that you install the target (new) drive where you plan to use it and the source drive in another location, e.g. in an external USB enclosure. This is especially important for laptops.”

But I wish to leave my source drive in situ and clone to the external drive, which is the opposite of what they recommend using usb. That’s why I asked about using the eSATA port to connect the new drive.

I suppose the other option rather than cloning would be to just backup my whole boot drive externally, swap for the new drive, and run a backup restore?

Steve

Steve, if you are cloning purely for the purpose of having a 'backup' of the source drive that is 'ready to go' then you should be able to do this by attaching the target drive by either USB or via eSATA but the key warning that you need to understand here, is to not attempt to boot your laptop into Windows with both drives connected after the clone has completed!

If you are intending to clone to introduce a new larger or faster SSD drive to the laptop, then again you can do this in either of several ways, i.e. as above then shutdown fully and replace the drive.  Else you can do as advised in the User Guide by starting with the new drive installed and attaching the original (source) drive externally then doing the clone.  Alternatively, you can use Backup & Restore to achieve the same results as doing a clone, and have the safety net of having that full backup image to fall back on in case of any issues arising.

Thank you Steve for the very comprehensive reply. I think I’ll go down the backup and restore route, as you point out at least I’ll have a current backup as well to be on the safe side.

many thanks 

Steve