[SOLVED] Best way to switch from a 500GB HDD to a 1TB HDD?

Hardwared

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Dec 30, 2019
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Hello,
Since my current 500GB HDD is quite old now (manufactured in 2011 !) I decided to switch to a new disk, which is, again, an HDD because that's the only thing I can buy with a decent storage on my budget.

I'm wondering how I could move all my data from this old disk to the new, knowing that there's two OSes (so multiple significant partitions)

I thought about using Clonezilla, but there's two things I'd like to know:
• Can I clone the partitions from the source to the destination then resize these to my will afterward, or do I have to use the advanced options to make these partitions fit or whatever ? (Per https://sourceforge.net/p/clonezilla/discussion/Help/thread/97b378f9/)

• Is it safe to use Clonezilla with an electrical installation that is not that safe ? I experienced last weeks electrical crackups for unknown reasons, and there's nothing I can do about it because I'm just a tenant. They're not that frequent but could happen at a random time, so during the cloning process.
Will the operation just be interrupted or more serious problems (data corruption on the source disk) can happen ?
 
Solution
Macrium Reflect will do this easily.
Copy the entirety of the 500GB to the 1TB, all partitions.

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new drive.
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive
Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new drive
This is to allow the...
The process would be interrupted. The risks would be no greater than any other interruption while OS files are being read or written.

Be prepared to be disappointed. Sure modern hard drives have faster sequential read/write and a larger cache. 1TB drives don't benefit as much as larger drives from this. The biggest problem is latency (seek time). Which is still horrible. What makes things sluggish is that when loading the OS or programs. The HDD is loading thousands of tiny files. Each file needs to be located and read. This is made much worse if you are using a cloud sync service (Onedrive, Google Drive, iCloud Drive). They punish HDD with high I/O activity. Going from 5,400RPM to 7,200RPM will be an improvement though.

I'd focus more on cleaning up your current hard drive. Disable processes which don't need to be starting with the computer.

If this is a desktop. Get a small SSD. A 240GB SSD is cheaper than a 1TB HDD. Use the SSD as a boot drive, applications, cloud sync, &c. Store all your data on your current HDD. You can even change the location of default user folders. This way downloads, documents, photos, &c folders are routed to the HDD. Clearing up the annoyance of remembering to change default save locations.

If this is a laptop and it has a DVD drive. Get the SSD and an optical bay adapter. Then do the same as the desktop suggestion. If no further expansion is possible. Consider a budget 500GB SSD. It's only slightly more than a 1TB HDD. Even some cheap model like a Kingston A400 is better than a HDD.

Resizing first is better to do than later if you choose to clone.
 

Hardwared

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Dec 30, 2019
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4,510
The process would be interrupted. The risks would be no greater than any other interruption while OS files are being read or written.
Thanks, it reassures me a bit. It seemed logical to me that nothing wrong would happen to the source disk in this case but I had to get sure after some posts I read on the Clonezilla forum

Be prepared to be disappointed. Sure modern hard drives have faster sequential read/write and a larger cache. 1TB drives don't benefit as much as larger drives from this. The biggest problem is latency (seek time). Which is still horrible. What makes things sluggish is that when loading the OS or programs. The HDD is loading thousands of tiny files. Each file needs to be located and read. This is made much worse if you are using a cloud sync service (Onedrive, Google Drive, iCloud Drive). They punish HDD with high I/O activity. Going from 5,400RPM to 7,200RPM will be an improvement though.

I'd focus more on cleaning up your current hard drive. Disable processes which don't need to be starting with the computer.

If this is a desktop. Get a small SSD. A 240GB SSD is cheaper than a 1TB HDD. Use the SSD as a boot drive, applications, cloud sync, &c. Store all your data on your current HDD. You can even change the location of default user folders. This way downloads, documents, photos, &c folders are routed to the HDD. Clearing up the annoyance of remembering to change default save locations.

If this is a laptop and it has a DVD drive. Get the SSD and an optical bay adapter. Then do the same as the desktop suggestion. If no further expansion is possible. Consider a budget 500GB SSD. It's only slightly more than a 1TB HDD. Even some cheap model like a Kingston A400 is better than a HDD.

Resizing first is better to do than later if you choose to clone.

Thanks for your advises ! However, the 1TB HDD is already bought.
The reasons are pretty simple: I needed more space anyway, and cleaning would not have saved many. But the main reason is that my current HDD is too old. I've seen that over 5 years this type of drive can be unreliable, and close to 10 years can completely die. Since my data wasn't backed up, I didn't want to take any risk.
SSD sounds like a great deal but I'm not running after speed absolutely (so far my current drive did an amazing job, and since the new I bought is clearly faster, it can only go for the better) and it's really too costful for me right now. My new drive was already pretty expensive for me, and putting a superior price to get something narrow didn't seem right to me.
Plus the fact that I didn't want to invest more into my old desktop PC, as I plan to buy a powerful laptop in a few years.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Macrium Reflect will do this easily.
Copy the entirety of the 500GB to the 1TB, all partitions.

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new drive.
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive
Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new drive
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the drive
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------
 
Solution

Hardwared

Reputable
Dec 30, 2019
7
0
4,510
Macrium Reflect will do this easily.
Copy the entirety of the 500GB to the 1TB, all partitions.

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new drive.
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive
Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new drive
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the drive
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

Thanks for the steps ! However, will using Macrium Reflect not be slower than Clonezilla since it seems to run on the OS ?
 

Hardwared

Reputable
Dec 30, 2019
7
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4,510
Not really. But even if it did, you're only talking about a few minutes difference either way.
I've used both.

Or, you can use Macrium off a bootable USB. Exactly like CloneZilla.
Alright, I will try that then !
One last question: there shouldn't be any problem resizing the partitions after the operation, right ?
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Alright, I will try that then !
One last question: there shouldn't be any problem resizing the partitions after the operation, right ?
Depends on how things end up.
If the resulting blank space is directly to the right of the C partition, you should be able to Extend no problem.
Otherwise, you'll need to use a 3rd party tool to manage how things are.

But, the original drive is untouched, so you can go back and try it again.
 

Hardwared

Reputable
Dec 30, 2019
7
0
4,510
Depends on how things end up.
If the resulting blank space is directly to the right of the C partition, you should be able to Extend no problem.
Otherwise, you'll need to use a 3rd party tool to manage how things are.

But, the original drive is untouched, so you can go back and try it again.
Alright, thank you a lot !