Cloning a larger HDD to a smaller SSD

[thenewnare]

I am attempting to upgrade a several computers from HDD to SSD and would like to use a stand alone cloner to do so.

The problem is that all of the SSD's are of smaller capacity than the HDD's and the cloners that I have found do not allow for this. Does anyone know of a stand alone cloner that would allow me to do this?

 

[USAFRet]

Going from large HDD to smaller SSD, you have only a few options.

1. Paragon Migrate http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/
Purports to move only the OS. Not free.

2. Reduce the install size on the HDD to below that of the SSD

3. Clean install on the SSD.

You can't put 10lbs of potatoes in a 5lb bag.

 

[Paperdoc]

Most of the stand-alone cloners I've looked at do not contain software sophisticated enough to change the Partition size. It is even more challenging moving to a smaller destination unit. By far the simplest path would be to use a cloning software utility on your computer. Just check first whether the cloner you consider can do exactly this job.

IF you insist on doing it with a stand-alone cloning machine, here is what you will have to do FIRST using other software.
1. Consider carefully what is already on your C: drive. You will have to remove files, if necessary, so that its total file space in use if a bit LESS than the size of the SSD you plan to move to.
2. Defragment the C: drive so all the files are grouped together in very few areas. BUT this still probably leaves some files in odd places.
3. Back up all your C: drive, just in case the next step fails and ruins your data.
4. Find and install a third-party software package that will shrink your existing C: drive's Partition down to the same size as (or slightly smaller than) the SSD you plan to move to. Windows will NOT do this job, although it can shrink Partitions. Windows tries to protect an HDD that contains the OS by refusing to do risky jobs, like shrinking a Partition, on that drive. That is why you'll need a third-party utility to do this.
5. OK. Now that you have your C: drive down to the size of the SSD destination unit, you can use the stand-alone cloner to do that last job.

Now, does that not seem much more complex that simply using a good cloning utility to do the job directly?

 

[tommeboy]

Samsung includes a utility with it's SSD's called data migration

It's typically used to clone an OLD drive to a NEW drive, and it does work for cloning larger to smaller drives.

I just tried a 1TB to a 256gb and it worked fine.

Hope this helps someone else.

 

[USAFRet]

Samsung includes a utility with it's SSD's called data migration

It's typically used to clone an OLD drive to a NEW drive, and it does work for cloning larger to smaller drives.

I just tried a 1TB to a 256gb and it worked fine.

Hope this helps someone else.

Yes, if your total used space on the old drive is smaller than the size of the SSD.
You can't fit 500GB actual used space into a 250GB drive.

 

[dennisL46]

Paragon Drive Copy does it easily. At least a dozen times I went to a smaller hard drive either ide or SSD. It automatically resizes as long as long as there is enough room. I bought Paragon Pro Version. The best thing I ever did. Works really well. Acronis true image makes the same claim and I tried it but several times the new installation would not start up. Not onr time did Paragon Pro fail.

 

[dbknoll]

I can't guarantee success, but as I type this, it appears that Acronis Migrate Easy is copying a Windows 10 installation (and many installed programs) from a 500GB Seagate spinning hard drive to a 240GB Samsung SSD. Migrate Easy recognized that the source drive was larger than the destination drive, but also saw that the source drive contained only about 150GB of files and proceeded to copy the contents of the larger partition to the 240GB target drive. I will re-post if the migration fails. By the way, the originating hard drive will not be disabled by this process and will be kept as a backup.

 

[USAFRet]

I can't guarantee success, but as I type this, it appears that Acronis Migrate Easy is copying a Windows 10 installation (and many installed programs) from a 500GB Seagate spinning hard drive to a 240GB Samsung SSD. Migrate Easy recognized that the source drive was larger than the destination drive, but also saw that the source drive contained only about 150GB of files and proceeded to copy the contents of the larger partition to the 240GB target drive. I will re-post if the migration fails. By the way, the originating hard drive will not be disabled by this process and will be kept as a backup.

This is a 2 year old thread. Things have changed a little.
With the current tools, the only thing that matters is the actual used space.
1TB HDD with 150GB actual used space, will migrate to a 250GB SSD no problem.

Macrium Reflect, Samsung Data Migration...both do this easily.

 

[philz]

Going from large HDD to smaller SSD, you have only a few options.

1. Paragon Migrate http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/
Purports to move only the OS. Not free.

2. Reduce the install size on the HDD to below that of the SSD

3. Clean install on the SSD.

You can't put 10lbs of potatoes in a 5lb bag.

Hi USAFRet

If I read that correctly, are you saying that you CAN clone a larger drive to a smaller one IF the space used on the larger drive is less than the capacity of the SSD? If that's the case, will the clone transfer the OS (Win 7) as well? Be great if that's the case. Any particular (free) favorite tools for doing this?

 

[USAFRet]

Going from large HDD to smaller SSD, you have only a few options.

1. Paragon Migrate http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/
Purports to move only the OS. Not free.

2. Reduce the install size on the HDD to below that of the SSD

3. Clean install on the SSD.

You can't put 10lbs of potatoes in a 5lb bag.

Hi USAFRet

If I read that correctly, are you saying that you CAN clone a larger drive to a smaller one IF the space used on the larger drive is less than the capacity of the SSD? If that's the case, will the clone transfer the OS (Win 7) as well? Be great if that's the case. Any particular (free) favorite tools for doing this?

Ok, moving on from a 2 year old thread:

The tool you want today is Macrium Reflect.

Will migrate the actual used space, incl the OS to a drive that has sufficient space to hold it.

 

[stanley1966]

Going from large HDD to smaller SSD, you have only a few options.

1. Paragon Migrate http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/
Purports to move only the OS. Not free.

2. Reduce the install size on the HDD to below that of the SSD

3. Clean install on the SSD.

You can't put 10lbs of potatoes in a 5lb bag.

Hi USAFRet

If I read that correctly, are you saying that you CAN clone a larger drive to a smaller one IF the space used on the larger drive is less than the capacity of the SSD? If that's the case, will the clone transfer the OS (Win 7) as well? Be great if that's the case. Any particular (free) favorite tools for doing this?

Ok, moving on from a 2 year old thread:

The tool you want today is Macrium Reflect.

Will migrate the actual used space, incl the OS to a drive that has sufficient space to hold it.

How would you go about doing this? I've been trying to get my OS from my HDD to new SSD and every way i've tried reads reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media even after setting boot priority.

 

[BowenRacing]

Going from large HDD to smaller SSD, you have only a few options.

1. Paragon Migrate http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/
Purports to move only the OS. Not free.

2. Reduce the install size on the HDD to below that of the SSD

3. Clean install on the SSD.

You can't put 10lbs of potatoes in a 5lb bag.

Hi USAFRet

If I read that correctly, are you saying that you CAN clone a larger drive to a smaller one IF the space used on the larger drive is less than the capacity of the SSD? If that's the case, will the clone transfer the OS (Win 7) as well? Be great if that's the case. Any particular (free) favorite tools for doing this?

Ok, moving on from a 2 year old thread:

The tool you want today is Macrium Reflect.

Will migrate the actual used space, incl the OS to a drive that has sufficient space to hold it.

How would you go about doing this? I've been trying to get my OS from my HDD to new SSD and every way i've tried reads reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media even after setting boot priority.

I've just stumbled on this thread, downloaded Macrium Reflect and installed it on my PC. Thanks for the recommendation. Using two SATA to USB adapters I have cloned a 149GB partition of a 500GB drive to a different 149GB drive. I can't test it right now though. However, maybe I can help before I go to bed in 30 minutes.

Stanley1966, how are you trying to clone it? For example, are you running Macrium Reflect on the source drive itself and trying to clone to an SSD on a SATA to USB adapter?

 

[tsnor]

Futher piling on a 2 year old thread.

The WD free version of Arconis True Image also resizes partitions smaller. I've done this many times. You just need 1 WD drive, including an external drive, to use the software. Works on win7, win10, etc.

The win7 backup restore utility will not resize, I discovered this to my horror once.

GL.

 

[BowenRacing]

Futher piling on a 2 year old thread.

The WD free version of Arconis True Image also resizes partitions smaller. I've done this many times. You just need 1 WD drive, including an external drive, to use the software. Works on win7, win10, etc.

The win7 backup restore utility will not resize, I discovered this to my horror once.

GL.

If I buy a WD hard drive (I buy lots of drives), can I use that WD free version of Acronis on non-WD drives please, cloning a Seagate to another Seagate for example?

 

[USAFRet]

Futher piling on a 2 year old thread.

The WD free version of Arconis True Image also resizes partitions smaller. I've done this many times. You just need 1 WD drive, including an external drive, to use the software. Works on win7, win10, etc.

The win7 backup restore utility will not resize, I discovered this to my horror once.

GL.

If I buy a WD hard drive (I buy lots of drives), can I use that WD free version of Acronis on non-WD drives please, cloning a Seagate to another Seagate for example?

AFAIK, yes.
Or you could use the above mentioned Macrium Reflect.

 

[Paperdoc]

Or, if you buy a Seagate unit, download and use their own free utility, Disk Wizard. It appears also to be a customized version of Acronis True Image, but will be happy to make a clone TO a Seagate unit.

 

[tsnor]

Futher piling on a 2 year old thread.

The WD free version of Arconis True Image also resizes partitions smaller. I've done this many times. You just need 1 WD drive, including an external drive, to use the software. Works on win7, win10, etc.

The win7 backup restore utility will not resize, I discovered this to my horror once.

GL.

If I buy a WD hard drive (I buy lots of drives), can I use that WD free version of Acronis on non-WD drives please, cloning a Seagate to another Seagate for example?

Yes, I've done this. As long as there is one WD drive in the config all is well. There are some functions (like encrypted backups) that are only in the full price version. All the stuff you really need is in the free one... backups and cloning.

 

[ErockBuy]

Futher piling on a 2 year old thread.

The WD free version of Arconis True Image also resizes partitions smaller. I've done this many times. You just need 1 WD drive, including an external drive, to use the software. Works on win7, win10, etc.

The win7 backup restore utility will not resize, I discovered this to my horror once.

GL.

If I buy a WD hard drive (I buy lots of drives), can I use that WD free version of Acronis on non-WD drives please, cloning a Seagate to another Seagate for example?

Yes, I've done this. As long as there is one WD drive in the config all is well. There are some functions (like encrypted backups) that are only in the full price version. All the stuff you really need is in the free one... backups and cloning.

Just as additional info for the Acronis True Image software included with WD hard drives, I can say that I just completed this last night. I migrated a 1TB drive onto a 500GB drive. Although, both of my drives were WD drives, it looks like the program just looks for WD to be available on the PC, once it sees a WD drive, you can migrate from any available drive on the PC to any other available drive on the PC, it just provides a list of drives that are connected.

As an aside, I have been banging my head on this issue trying to use Clonezilla, etc. but once I found out that the WD hard drives came with this free cloning software, it was a godsend. I was able to perform the clone easily.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Time to close this 2 year old thread.