How to clone/migrate O/S system disk sata ssd over too a new NVME M2 SSD without data loss

Dave, your request contains several important factors that you are wanting to achieve here.

I would suggest splitting these factors into separate tasks to minimise the issues that can arise.

First, you should migrate your existing Windows 7 SATA SSD from MBR to GPT as required by UEFI.

After that first task is successful and you have Windows 7 booting in UEFI mode from the GPT SSD, then look at the second task of migrating from the SATA SSD to your new NVMe M.2 SSD, which should then be much simpler to achieve, assuming that you can obtain the necessary NVMe drivers for Windows 7?

You may wish to consider upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 which has native support for NVMe drives, especially given that Windows 7 support ends in January 2020 which is just over a year away!

For the first task, while you can do this using ATI 2018/2019 this would involve doing a Backup & Recovery (changing the boot mode of the Rescue Media from Legacy to UEFI) to achieve, whereas there are partition programs available that can convert your drive directly.

See webpage:  Free Convert MBR to GPT Without Data Loss for one example but this is focused on converting a non-system drive - you would need to purchase their pro version to do the same with a system drive!

See webpage: How to Convert MBR to GPT Disk in Windows 10/8/7 - and note the options offered here, but at the bottom of the article, note the new tool offered with Windows 10 build 1703 & later:

UPDATE: Read about the new MBR2GPT Disk Conversion Tool in Windows 10 Creators Update v1703. Using this built-in tool, you can safely and non-destructively convert a Windows 10 computer from legacy BIOS to UEFI disk partitioning.

Thank's for your reply, I have no plans to upgrade to win 10 at the present time, As it's my PC i like to make decisions such as if i wish to apply an update or not, i currently enjoy that choice using Win 7 and have a very stable system, as for support, what support?  due to several issues with many of the security updates over the past 12 months, i haven't applied any after Dec,17, i do have a very good security suite though and plenty of common sense.

So ATI doesn't do what i need it to?  I found this older forum post and replied to it, but thought it better to open my own  topic for better visibility   https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2017-forum/conversion-mbr-gpt-possible-without-loss-data

This seems to suggest it can be done in ATI, but it makes reference to WIN10 which isn't part of what i need to know

I know that could now that i have a working copy of WIN7 create a bootable flash drive with the WIN7 ISO and Samsung NVME driver and USB3 drivers slipstreamed into the correct location within the windows installation media  and install it  in UEFI that way  but then i would have to apply updates and reinstall all my software again which i want to avoid

As for the NVME driver I would have to install this to me current WIN7 system  prior to cloning/migrating/restoring it,MS released an update that supposedly added support for NVME and had to issue a hotfix shortly after, i have read a few horror stories about it not working properly, hence why i favour Samsungs driver

I also just found this forum post which may or may not be closer to what I'm trying to achieve, if you exclude the part about the size of the target disk as that is not a factor in my case  https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2016-forum/can-acron…

According to what is said in that forum post   https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2016-forum/can-acronis-true-image-2016-clone-convert-1tb-mbr-3tb-gpt-hdd

It would appear that i would need to create the the bootable acronis rescue media on a USB stick and then set the bios to boot in uefi only before recovering the image to the nvme drive and also be bootable if what is written is correct , The other concern is that i don't really want to have to buy another disk unless i really have to just to create a back up, as the disk i'm using now will be a backup, untilli format it and copy my games onto it

Dave, you can migrate your Win 7 drive from MBR to GPT by using ATI and Backup & Recovery, but the key part of this is in using the Acronis bootable Rescue Media and booting this in the mode that is required to migrate to GPT, which is in UEFI mode.

See the ATI 2019 User Guide: Migration method - where the various different scenarios are shown and what the effects will be of each.

See in particular: UEFI-booted system, MBR, UEFI supported - which describes the result that you want to achieve.

Once you have your OS drive migrated to GPT and booting in UEFI mode (using Windows Boot Manager as the boot priority device), then you should be able to install the NVMe M.2 drive along with the Samsung NVMe drivers, then you can try using the ATI 2019 Active Clone function to clone directly from your SATA SSD to the M.2 SSD from within Windows.  If all is successful, then you should be able to change the Boot Priority device in the UEFI BIOS to use the Windows Boot Manager from the new SSD, though you should probably disconnect the SATA SSD initially to avoid getting a disk signature clash.

Can i use my existing system as a source or would making a backup/ image of that disk be better/safer in your opinion ?,as i imagine the only known risks are a power outage during the operation or user error,ie selecting the wrong disk ect, or am i missing something?

Dave, it is always recommended to have a good full disk backup before any operation of this type.

Ok, i'll see if i can move all the data of 1 of my Mechanical HDD's over to the other as i have 2 of them,  and iirc any backup formats the target disk before it copies the data or is there a way of preserving  the data   already on it and just add the backup in a new partition? failing this i will have to buy another sata ssd and use it soley for image back ups

Having a good backup on an external backup drive is best.  You are correct that the first action of a recovery (or clone) is to wipe the target drive / partition(s), depending on exactly how you are recovering / what you are recovering.

Thank's for that support  told me in their 1st response was

would suggest you to perform Cloning in this case ( backup and recovery is also possible, but it is lengthy process ). Clone an active Windows system directly to a new drive without stopping your system and restarting Windows. This can be easily done with Acronis True Image 2019 and its Active Cloning feature.

When i further queried the answer 

. Unfortunately, that is not possible. Acronis will let you to initialize the NVME drive to GPT format however, during Cloning the destination drive will again formatted.

 is what i got, which didn't confirm but confuse the issue,lol

So, plan of attack, if i have got this correct

1. Download and create a bootable USB flash drive (uefi)  Acronis Bootable Rescue Media

2,create a full backup /image of the system/ source disk, check that the backup clone boots ok  by unplugging the original and booting into windows (would this still be MBR a like for like clone?) if not i would need to use step 6 change the system in bios to UEFI )

3, install NVME drive into the M2 slot, (MBR) or would the backup be converted to gpt?  then if all working ok, use that backup as the Source disk

4, set the boot order in system bios so that the USB rescue media flash drive boots 1st & set to boot in uefi mode only? power off

5,Insert the  Acronis Bootable Rescue Media into a usb port and power on the system power on the system should boot into Acronis rescue, and then clone the backup disk to the NVME?

6, finally reboot into system bios and set the bios to uefi mode only, not sure about secure boot but i assume win7 doesn't use it?  

Is the above correct although you could interchange steps 1 and 2  

Dave,

Tell me more about your NVMe drive you are installing.  I see that it is the new form factor M.2 slot drive.  I suspect the drive uses the PCIe interface rather than SATA given it is an NVMe drive, can you confirm?

There are a few things you must do in addition to supplying the correct driver for the NVMe drive to get your mobo working with a PCIe drive.  For one, you must enable SATA/RAID in the bios to enable the settings for PCIe to work with a storage device (drive).  If you have your mobo manual handy look at page 3-31 under RAID support and read the NOTE.

Raid mode is necessary for a couple of reasons.  One is that the PCIe drives operate at such elevated speeds that they far exceed the standard SATA interface.  Enabling RAID helps with that limitation.  Enabling RAID Mode on the board means that you will need to install the Intel SATA/RAID/AHCI drivers for the RAID to function correctly.  These drivers will need to be installed in Windows as well so that Windows can make use of the RAID storage configuration instead of your current SATA config.

From my perspective I recommend that the first thing you do here is create a backup image of your current Windows installation before making any changes period.  This will serve as your safety net if things go wrong.

Once you do that then you can attempt to make this conversion. It will require the following steps:

1. Install the NVMe driver for the M.2 drive, reboot to verify it works.
2. Install the Intel RAID drivers in your Win 7 installation, reboot to verify all still works.
3. Boot to bios and enable SATA RAID Mode in your machine bios.
4. Reboot your machine with the above done to ascertain that all works as expected so far.
5. If all is working, create another backup image of your newly configured Win 7 installation.
6. Install WinPE for Windows 7 on your PC for use in building WinPE Media with the below tool
7. Create Acronis True Image boot media.  I would recommend the MVP Media Creation tool available HERE
8. With computer shutdown, remove all attached drives except any CD/DVD drives
9. With all drives removed boot computer into bios.
10. Enable UEFI in bios, save and exit, return to bios to confirm UEFI enabled, save and exit then shutdown.
11. Attach the WinPE media you created along with the drive that contains the last backup image file you created that has the RAID drivers and NVMe drivers installed.
12. Boot your machine into the bios, go to the Advanced setup, Boot section and select the UEFI entry for your WinPE media. (UEFI will appear first followed by the device name)
13. Once booted into that media select Recovery, select the backup image file you wish to restore.
14. Your next step is to select the destination.  If all is well you should see your NVMe drive listed as a destination device.  Select it.
15. Next will be a verification screen which should also warn that the current GPT format will be retained to enable the restored device to boot (NOTE: if you do not see this warning then you are not booted into UEFI mode.  In that case Cancel the recovery, exit, shutdown, boot into bios and make certain the the WinPE media having UEFI first in the name is the selected boot device.  Save and exit to try again.). 
16. Clicking Proceed will start the restore to the NVMe drive.
17. Once restore is completed you can shutdown the computer using the Shutdown option in the MVP WinPE media.
18. Once shutdown disconnect the drive that has your backup image file on it and the WinPE media, then boot the machine into the bios.
19. Using Advanced setup navigate to the Boot section, locate the Boot order and select Windows Boot Manager from the list of devices.  Save and exit allowing the machine to boot on its own.  You should soon see the Win 7 logo screen and Windows booted shortly thereafter.

If you do not understand anything listed here then I recommend that you do not attempt this migration. 

HI,Enchantech, The new NVME Drive will be a Samsung 970 Which is i belive a M.2 (2280) PCIe 3.0 (x4) ssd,( so not sata) and it installs into the M2 socket on the motherboard

As for raid how will that work with my other disks, which are not the same size as the nvme? from my little knowlage of raid arrays the hdds must be the same size or your largest will be reduced to the smallest size, no good to me,

 i have 2 1tb wd re sata hdd's 1, is sata2 the other sata3, and a 256gb sata ssd

Also Step 1 in your guide, install the NVME driver to my existing win7 install, and reboot to see if it works, whatare you refereing to win7 installation,? if so why wouldn't it?

You will not actually be configuring a RAID array of drives.  What you will be doing is adding bandwidth capacity to to the SATA channels via the Intel drivers.  The PCIe channels used for these M.2 slots utilizes the SATA Express channels of the board through the PCH.  You simply enable the Mode (RAID) and the PCH does the rest.

Your other drives will live just fine as normal drives.  If you look at my system specs you will see 2 computers with M.2 PCIe OS Windows drives.  These computers have multiple SATA SSD and HDD drives in them as well without issue.

I see, As for the intel raid drivers i may just already have that installed if it is part of the intel rapid storage technology utility this :https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25165/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Tec…

Would the media creation tool perform similar funtions to Rufus? or is it a different program also can you confirm if i will need to download this or not, AIK for Windows 7 From the Ms download centre  re(winPE)

You can verify your installed driver using Windows Device Manager, illustrated below in Win 10.  You can also look at msinfo32.exe from a Run command box, expand Software Environment, look for iastor driver entries.  If the Intel entries are something other than iastor you will need to install new drivers.  Personally I would do it anyway as storage drivers get updated frequently.

Link to the latest Intel drivers is HERE

I have the drivers iastor A - F -V in sysinfo A-V are running set to boot, and V the raid driver is set to manual (not running) btw i'm using WIN7 not 10 divice manager doesn't list a raid device only the intel and asmedia storage controllers

Can you verify what driver version you have using Device Manager right click on the Intel Controller, select properties, click on the Driver tab.

 the Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller is version 15.8.1.1007 from 2017

Your good to go with that driver.  The Samsung NVMe driver might not install for you without the drive physically attached to the mobo.  I would try to install it without the drive first.  That driver works with the controller embedded in the drive itself.  Win 7 does not offer native support for NVMe controllers whereas Win 10 does.  I'm sure you already know this.

I think your chances of getting this to work with Win 7 would be greatly increased if you can successfully install the NVMe driver.  If you cannot you just have to proceed without it and see how it goes.  I believe that having RAID enabled in your bios along with UEFI plus booting the WinPE in UEFI mode will allow TI to see your NVMe drive and perform the recovery of the backup image to it.  It might not boot correctly though without the NVMe driver.

If you can get the recovery done following my outline and it will not boot into Win 7 then I would try to boot it in Safe Mode with the Win 7 install disc.  If you can boot in Safe Mode then you just might get the NVMe driver installed while in Safe Mode, then reboot normally and hopefully it will come to life.

There is always this option i could add these two updates from MS that are   supposed to add native support for NVME

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2990941/update-to-add-native-driver-support-in-nvm-express-in-windows-7-and-wi

And maybe this hot fix as well

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3087873/0x0000007e-stop-error-after-you-install-hotfix-2990941-in-windows-7-sp

Re the samsung driver not installing on my current win7 os,ssd i could always first add the native nvme support updates from MS KB 3087873 & KB 2990941 to my os first?

That is something I would recommend you do yes, I had forgotten about the MS fix.  I certainly believe that it will improve your chances of success in getting the computer to boot after the restore process is complete.

Having a look around for reports of others having issues installing samsung nvme drivers , seems according to samsung the driver is supposed to be installed after the os is installed on it, although their reference is for installing a clean copy of windows using the installation media, i guess if i install the NVME then try and instal the driver to my os before cloning ? adding the ms hotfixes if needed

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Memory-Storage/Samsung-NVMe-SSD-960…

The thread you supply is of course a discussion on supplying drivers for the installation of Win 7.  That is not supported by the Samsung drivers and what is happening here is that some of the more advanced users are extracting the drivers from the install executable, placing them on a thumb drive, and pointing the Win 7 installer to that thumb drive when the Win 7 installer asks where to install Windows and offers a F6 prompt to point to.

You are not doing this here.  You are attempting to take an already installed Win 7 OS and migrate that installation to your NVMe drive.  These are two completely different operations.  Another possible way to supply the Samsung drivers to the recovered backup on your drive is by using Acronis Universal Restore tool. 

Universal Restore is a bootable media similar to the True Image bootable media but is run after True Image has restored a backup to a computer.  Universal Restore sole purpose is to supply missing drivers when needed in cases where there have been a significant change in hardware, in most cases a motherboard upgrade, so that the new hardware has the necessary driver support to work properly.

A change in hard drives is not, in most cases, a situation where you would use the Universal Restore tool however in your case this drive upgrade is certainly a significant hardware change and thus would be a good candidate for using the tool.

In order to use the tool you will need to extract the driver files from the Samsung executable installer file.  When I do this I prefer to use a third party app called 7zip to do so.  It is quick and works great for this purpose.  You can download the 7zip app from the official website HERE

Even though you can get the app at the linked site I recommend using your anti-virus app to scan the file before you run it.  Once you have the app installed it will add itself to the right click context menu of Windows so you can just right click on the Samsung executable file and select the 7zip app.  Choose an extraction option and in a flash you have the individual files of the executable extracted which you can then add to a thumb drive to use with the Universal Restore tool.

So you would still follow my step instructions as outlined to recover the backup image onto the NVMe drive once you have enabled RAID and UEFI boot.  After that is complete you would then boot the Universal Restore tool and run it on the recovered drive.  When it asks for drivers point it to your thumb drive, the tool should do the rest.

You can download and install the Universal Restore Media Builder tool from the Tools tab in the True Image GUI.

I have winrar already installed no no worries on the extraction side, but thanks for suggesting it,and this may help someone else in the future, 

I just had a look through the samsung driver installation guide and i suggests that raid mode not be enabled 

System Configuration
Windows Operating System shall successfully load the driver only when Samsung NVMe SSD 970 PRO, 970 EVO, 960 PRO, 960 EVO or 950 PRO is installed to
 PCIe slot directly connected to CPU or
 M.2 or PCIe slot connected to PCH.
However, in the PCH case, Windows Operating System cannot load the driver under following BIOS configurations where
 PCH Storage Configuration is set to “Raid Mode, or
 NAND/Storage Remapping option*” is enabled.
* The option name can be different according to M/B manufacturers.
Please refer to your M/B manual.

http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/content/DR/201805/20180515165053017/Samsung_NVMeDriver_InstallationGuide_Rev3.0.pdf

Why are my replies being subjected to moderation all of a sudden? I composed a post in reply, containing a quote from the manufacturer's website(pdf user guide) and a link to that pdf, with a brief explanation of what they suggest re the raid mode being enabled in the PHC  and my post is delayed/moderated for what?

Dave, the forum has suffered with some automated attacks recently where the hacker was posting autorun videos and generating hundreds of new topics, so Acronis have had to be more strict with moderating some posts containing external links to prevent a repeat which left the forum unusable for all users.

Thank's for letting me know Steve, i thought it was very odd,

Dave,

I've been watching this tread with interest because I have a computer running Windows 7 on an Asus Maximus VIII Hero motherboard. The system is on a Samsung 850 Pro SSD. The BIOS SATA Mode is set to AHCI. The only difference is that the disk with my Windows 7 64 bit system is already formatted GPT.

I decided to see what it would take to accomplish your goal. Following are the steps I took and some tips and recommendations:

I hope your Windows 7 system is 64 bit otherwise forget the whole project.

1. I used the KB's Microsoft has provided to add native NVMe support to Windows 7. I applied them successfully to the system while it was still running on the 850 Pro SSD. It went well.

2. I made a full disk backup of the 850 PRO.

3. I removed the 850 Pro with the working Windows 7 system from the computer for safe keeping.

4. I installed a Samsung 960 Pro NVMe drive in the M.2 slot on the motherboard. The drive was initialize as GPT with no partitions on it. I learned that when the M.2 slot is used, SATA ports 1 and 2 become disabled. This is a limitation of the motherboard. Your other internal drive and DVD drive will need to be moved to ports above 2.

5. I booted the computer using Windows 10 recovery media in UEFI mode. Windows 10 media has native NVMe support. You should install the Windows 10 ADK and WinPE add-on in your Windows 7 system. The Windows 10 ADK is backward compatible and works in Windows 7. You should also build the Acronis recovery media using the MVP Tool available from the right side of the forum page. This is the easiest way to get all you will need in the recovery media.

6. I restored the full disk backup to the NVMe drive. The disk remained formatted GPT. If the recovery media had been booted in Legacy mode (not UEFI mode), TI would have converted the disk to MBR.

At this point the Windows 7 system successfully booted. The SATA Mode was still set to AHCI. Secure Boot was still set to Other OSs. This is important. Secure Boot is a feature introduced in Windows 8. Windows 7 will not boot with Secure Boot set to Windows UEFI mode.

I'd strongly recommend you stop at this point. I took some benchmarks of the NVMe drive and the speed was amazing! You will be very happy. Out of curiosity, I decide to see if implementing Intel RST RAID would make any improvement in the NVMe speed. Here's what I learned:

1. I found the Intel RST driver that was intended to support Windows 7 systems. It turned out to be version 12. I installed it in Windows 7 on the NVMe drive. Intel RST version 15 (recommended above) doesn't work in Windows 7. It installs but the RAID controller doesn't work in Device Manager.

2. I set the BIOS SATA Mode to Intel RST RAID and rebooted into Windows 7. Device Manage showed the RAID controller was working. I ran a benchmark of the NVMe drive and found it ran at the same speed as before.

3. I went back to the BIOS and saw another setting under the SATA Mode setting. I used it to Enable M.2 RAID support. At this point Windows 7 would no longer boot. I had to disable the M.2 RAID support setting.

Conclusion:

Stay away from Intel RST. It won't help you on this setup.

Tip:

You should convert your Windows 7 system disk from MBR to GPT before you start any of the above. I highly recommend using a third party program like EaseUS Partition Master Pro or AOMEI Partition Wizard Pro for the job. I've used them and they work nicely and make life much easier. Yes, you may get it done with True Image but that's a wing and a prayer. 

Hi, Mustang,Yes my Win 7 is the x64 bit, as 32 would make 16gb of ram useless, and 3gb of ram isn't any longer really up to the task anymore if you get what i mean,

When it comes to the recovery of the backup image onto the nvme SSD, from what i understand about Acronis i should be able to use the Acronis media creation tool via a USB flash drive booting in UEFI mode which should then restore and convert it to GPT /UEFI boot mode? But as has been suggested by Steve, i could instead convert the backup image from MBR to GPT

As for the sata port 1-2 this limitation as far as I understand is only when the SSD in the M.2 slot is running in SATA mode, if NVME  which the Evo 970 is , you don't loose the first 2 SATA ports

Apparently, If you setup M2_1 as PCI-E with a nvme SSD, you will not lose SATA Ports 1&2  Chapter 1 page 2 of the  mobo user guide 

Then there is the Samsung NVME driver installation  from what i can gather as far as that goes the NVME would need to be installed on the board first,and visible in my win7 os for it to install and more so  load the driver, this maybe an issue , but if the nvme boots ok after the image is recovered to it  then i can just instal in the normal manner

Re: Setting to the raid option  in the PCH sub menu, in Samsungs nvme driver installation guide  pdf,  does make reference to this but says it shouldn't be enabled, but of course, they include the * get out  saying that different mobo's and bios etc  may vary, lol

As for other software, i don't see any point in buying other similar s/w that i will probably only use the 1 time, now if i had more of a use for it that would be different

Mustang wrote:

I'd strongly recommend you stop at this point. I took some benchmarks of the NVMe drive and the speed was amazing! You will be very happy. Out of curiosity, I decide to see if implementing Intel RST RAID would make any improvement in the NVMe speed. Here's what I learned:

 

Care to share your benchmark results?  I'd be interested in seeing them.

Enchantech:

I only used HD Tune Free version 2.55 to run benchmarks. I didn't have Crystal Disk Mark installed in the Windows 7 system.

Running on the Samsung 850 Pro I got an average speed of 382 MB/sec. Not bad compared to HDD's that benchmark between 150 and 200 MB/sec.

Running on the Samsung 960 Pro NVMe with the Windows 7 native NVMe drivers, I got an average speed of 1452 MB/sec. I didn't install the Samsung NVMe driver for testing because past experiments have shown the Samsung driver doesn't make these drives run any faster than the native Windows driver.

A Samsung 970 Pro NVMe will be even faster.

Dave:

You're right about the port 1 & 2 limitation. Thinking back on my sequence of events the drives on ports 1 & 2 disappeared when I changed the SATA Mode from AHCI to Intel RST RAID with the IRST version 15 drivers installed. The version 15 drivers caused the SATA RAID controller to stop working and I lost all the SATA ports.

You should start the process now while waiting for the new NVMe drive to arrive. Try converting the MBR system to GPT with True Image.

I would have already made an image /back up of the system disk (MBR) But to do this with the 1tb SATA HDD's that i have which have enough free space  ie 256gb which is the total size of my current system disk, but they have lots of data already written to them, and recovery of an image" As is " would mean existing data on that disk, or partition is chosen as the destination would be formatted prior to being written to it from my understanding of how Acronis works

So as a remedy to this and the now reduced price of SATA SSD's like the 860 Evo, I'm

  buying one of these, to initially use for the system back up, then once i have the cloned backup of  win 7  booting using UEFI so MBR converted to GPT as well  and then of course cloned as is to the NVME, and also cloned to the original SSD or that is then converted to a UEFI bootable system  back up , I will then use the  new 860 Evo for games, such as wildlands  which takes an age loading from mechanical HDD I'm sure i will see the benefit from using a SATA SSD on many more games in the future 

I would need to copy all the important stuff over to, and not that i think it should affect  the backup i have moved the system  page file in windows to one of the 1tb HDD's to save writes on the SSD , likewise i  have browsers writing history, cookies etc to the mechanical 1tb drive, (ie browser profile,.)

So as  long as i keep the same drive letters for both  cloned system disk and the 1tb with page file etc  on it,  so in my case always C for the system, and  disk with Page file ect  on it,  is always E

I shouldn't encounter loss of browser profiles  and access to any software that is installed on the mechanical drive ie shortcuts or system tasks not working 

Just to add it's a shame that the MS MBRGPT tool wasn't standalone, because in order to make use of it  as i understand it  i would need to download, then create bootable flash drive  and install win 10 creators edition,  from that onto a disk in  GPT , and use the built-in tool to convert my existing win7 system disk or a cloned back up of that,? which seems a long way of doing it, because i would then need to format that win 10 disk again  as i have no intentions of using that any time soon 

Mustang,

Thanks for sharing your results.  Most of the benchmark tools will only give you a general idea of performance so which one you use is just not that relevant.  Crystal Disk is the most configurable so it is preferred by many.  

From my own testing on these new PCIe drives what I have found is that read/write performance is dependent on what family of chipset is on the mobo and what series of driver the onboard OPROM uses.  In general, you should use an OS driver that is in the same series as the OPROM for optimum read/write performance.  So if your OPROM is using a 12 series driver than you should be running the latest 12 series Intel driver, at least in theory.

With Win 7 things get a bit more complicated because of the lack of native support for NVMe.  The NVMe update for Win 7 issued by MS sole purpose of that was so that the Win 7 installer, during a clean install, would be able to see and write to an NVMe drive.  It does nothing beyond that to my knowledge.

The NVMe spec brought a performance increase in IOPS more so than read/write performance.  IOPS increases far greater with NVMe than SATA.  This has some effect on read/write but not in huge numbers.  An increase in IOPS, especially with small 4k file sizes, is something you will feel in real world use but is not measured accurately by most benchmarks.  This is due to those benchmarks lacking recent development to support the spec.

If you test with Crystal Disk you can measure IOPS effectively which is why it has gained in popularity.  By increasing Q depth you can see the gains in IOPS which is something that the benchmark allows a user to do.   Increases in IOPS effect read performance more than write performance as well.  

The real advantage of NVMe with Intel RAID enabled is consistency of performance across Q depth.  In real world day to day use a user won't notice the difference unless they are running very heavy work loads.  I am attaching two screenshots below to illustrate this.  Keep in mind these are results from a Win 10 system using a 15 series driver set.  The first bench shows results of Q depth set at 64 with a 4 thread (core) count.  The second bench shows results of Q depth 128 with 4 thread count.  Notice the consistency in 4k performance between the two.  This is where NVMe shines.

:)

Just an update, The SSD's have arrived  860  Evo SATA  and 970 Evo NVME both 500gb  The 860 will be used for the Clone or backup of my current 265gb system disk Which i will use as my source disk to for recovery onto the NVME and conversion of MBR 2 GPT via  using the Acronis bootable media booted in UEFI mode

I found this post in the forums, which seems to be more of less what i want to achieve, looks to be relevant 

https://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/index.html#26852.html

Except i plan on using the backup, if that would work as my source disk, instead of the original working system disk, as from what i have read so far a full disk back up would be written as a .tib file? so until it is restored there's no way of me knowing if the backup actually was written properly or actually works?  

Also, what is meant by this terminology Backup of your system disk created in disk mode? what is disk mode?

I have also found that macrium reflect FREE actually does what i need,  ?

Also, what is meant by this terminology Backup of your system disk created in disk mode? what is disk mode?

Depending on the context. 

Disk mode for a backup means a backup at a Disk & Partitions level which is required in order to recover a Windows OS.  The OS cannot be recovered from a Files & Folders type backup.

Disk mode for a recovery means selecting the target destination for the recovery at the top-most disk level (which will automatically select all partitions on that disk backup, and will also automatically allocate those partitions in the correct order and size, adjusted to fit the target drive).

So in other words a full disk back up?  So, my 1st step's should be create the bootable medial revovery tool on to a ubs stick, add the Ms win hot fixes to my os, and hopefully the samsung nvme driver too, then plug in my new SSD(sata)  and make a full disk backup of my sytem disk, on to that new ssd,

Then presumably i would remove my working system disk and  disconnect all other storage disks,  (inc back up ssd)  to aviod possibleerror install the NVME to the mobo, set the system bios to boot in uefi mode, check that it is recognised in bios if all is ok, then set the the bios boot priority to boot to from the usb 1st

re connect the backup ssd, reboot again into the acronis recovery usb in uefi mode, then recover that back up/image to the nvme,which hopefully will be formatted and have my os restored on to it and be a gpt disk ,and after removing the usb bootable media, and reboot  i hopefully should have a bootable system on nvme, the only possible snag maybe the nvme driver, if that wont install, which may stop it from booting

If i'm wrong on any of this please feel free to corect me, i won't be offended, being new to this acronis backup cloning recovery stuff ,i see the potentials of getting it wrong and spending hourse on something should take a lot less time whilst ripping my hair out,

Dave, the only extra step that may be needed may be to use the 'Add new disk' tool from the Acronis Rescue USB stick if it does not 'see' your new NVMe SSD.

Thanks for that Steve,  I did wonder in what circumstances a user would use or need to use that  button,

The only time the "add new disk" would need to be used is if the disk has not been initialized.  Your Samsung drive by default should come that way.

You can add the Samsung driver after you get Win 7 up and running.  So I would install the MS fix for NVMe support to your existing install prior to making a backup image file (tib) from which to recover with.

Thanks, Just a quick question, re the samsung nvme driver  will it not install to my existing ssd that i'm using now ? i realise that the driver won't load if there is no nvme drive installed/detected ,but as you say i should be able to install it to the recovered image once on the NVME in the normal manner

Dave,

I believe the Samsung driver will not install without the drive actually being installed on the mobo.  You can certainly give it a try to see.

You could also try installing the NVMe drive and then reboot the machine into the bios as see if any new options have been activated in the bios.  If the bios detects the drive once installed, then you should still be able to boot the original drive into Windows and then attempt to install the Samsung driver.  I would think that the driver would be able to find the drive if recognized by the bios and therefore install the driver.

I would think so too, as i should be able to use it as a data disk if i wanted to, because GPT and MBR disks can co -exist on the same system without issues, unless of course the disk is over 2 or 4tb iicr , asus i'm sure has a software utility  disk unlocker for that i belive , though not relivant in my case  https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1012220/

I don't belive it, MS have pulled theirnvme patches 

Did you try HERE

EDIT: Never mind, I see they are no longer available.

EDIT 2: Found em look HERE

Enchantech wrote:

Did you try HERE

 Yes https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4343220/this-hotfix-is-no-longer-available

Unless there is another download location

Well the samsungdriver wont instal as it checks for the nvme ssd  says not nvme express device connected, so i'll have to hope it gets detected in the bios

Ok, Installed EVO970 Was detected correctly, it appears in device manager , and the Samsung magician s/w sees it  as does HD sentinel, it's showing in disk management as unallocated, system reserved ,

Just seen your edit, downloaded that hotfix just in case, the other isn't coming up in the cat  KB2990941, I also have formatted the drive, and benchmarked it,

So, is it disk 3 that is the NVMe drive?

When you do your image restore I recommend that you disconnect the other 2 drives temporarily as they are not needed and at times multiple disks can confuse both Windows and TI into wanting to write boot files to the wrong drive.

Enchantech wrote:

So, is it disk 3 that is the NVMe drive?

When you do your image restore I recommend that you disconnect the other 2 drives temporarily as they are not needed and at times multiple disks can confuse both Windows and TI into wanting to write boot files to the wrong drive.

Yes, thats the evo 970  samsung sees it as PCIE Gen 3 x 4 , RE disconecting the 2 HDD's and the SSD (system disk)  yes i was planning just having the nvme and the new evo 860  with the .tib backup image of my system disk written to it,

Should i install the 1 hotfix that is available or do i not need it now, as all the related topics i have found so far are refereing to including them to a ISO of win 7 installation files ,and not to a back up/clone of a working wiin7 system with the samsung nvme driver installed , (well samsung storage controller) the driver in device manager says microsoft

What I think you will run into is that if you do not install the MS hotfix prior to creating your backup of the Windows SSD is that after you restore the backup to the NVMe drive that drive will not boot.  It works fine as a secondary drive sure boot making it the boot device is the issue.

True Image Media booted in UEFI mode will create a FAT32 format partition on the drive to write the boot files to.  Just as the Windows 7 installer looks for a driver for the drive during the install process so does True Image.  Without the MS hotfix installed I think True Image may not be able to write the boot files correctly.

You need to understand here that there are different drivers in play than just that for Windows.  Your Mobo has a OPROM chip on it that controls the PCIe lanes.  That OPROM needs a driver to work with M.2 devices.  That driver is an Intel driver in all cases period.

The NVMe drive itself has an onboard controller.  The Samsung driver you wish to install works with that controller.

Windows installed needs yet another driver for the Storage Controller on Mobo.  The one you see in Device Manager is this driver.

So the Win 7 hotfix needs to be installed so that the drive can be detected and written to during OS install.  You can equate that process to True Image writing/restoring the disk image file to the drive.

Once you have the restore complete and the machine booted and working then you can install drivers for the Mobo storage controller and the NVMe drives controller.

Enchantech wrote:

What I think you will run into is that if you do not install the MS hotfix prior to creating your backup of the Windows SSD is that after you restore the backup to the NVMe drive that drive will not boot.  It works fine as a secondary drive sure boot making it the boot device is the issue.

True Image Media booted in UEFI mode will create a FAT32 format partition on the drive to write the boot files to.  Just as the Windows 7 installer looks for a driver for the drive during the install process so does True Image.  Without the MS hotfix installed I think True Image may not be able to write the boot files correctly.

You need to understand here that there are different drivers in play than just that for Windows.  Your Mobo has a OPROM chip on it that controls the PCIe lanes.  That OPROM needs a driver to work with M.2 devices.  That driver is an Intel driver in all cases period.

The NVMe drive itself has an onboard controller.  The Samsung driver you wish to install works with that controller.

Windows installed needs yet another driver for the Storage Controller on Mobo.  The one you see in Device Manager is this driver.

So the Win 7 hotfix needs to be installed so that the drive can be detected and written to during OS install.  You can equate that process to True Image writing/restoring the disk image file to the drive.

Once you have the restore complete and the machine booted and working then you can install drivers for the Mobo storage controller and the NVMe drives controller.

 

 Not sure what you mean by installing the samsungdriver , as it is already installed, because without that driver windows detects it, but says it is installed incorrectly, and is not visible  in windows, So i installed the Samsung driver, and formatted the disk,  i'll install that Hotfix, i have not problems with doing that, i just couldn't help but wonder if it was really needed in my circumstances as i'm not installing win7 on to the nvme, but essentially copying it , i thought ATI or macrium would do the rest regarding the boot