cloning my hdd to my ssd

so i have a 500gb wd black edition hdd that i would like to clone to a sandisk 480gb ssd.my wd black only has about 40gb used but of course i get the error that the ssd is too small.the black will only be for backup so i dont mind losing some space in order to make this work.any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Solution
Verified and tested cloning steps:

-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
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 SSD
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...

jasonkaler

Distinguished
There are a few options:
1) get software that can handle cloning to a different size drive.
2) shrink your current partition to a smaller size, then try clone that
3) do a full backup and restore onto the new drive
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
No need to shrink any partitions.
Recent software uses just the data, not the whole partition size.

Do it like this:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
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 SSD
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 as necessary.
Delete the original boot partitions, here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4f1b84ac-b193-40e3-943a-f45d52e23685/cant-delete-extra-healthy-recovery-partitions-and-healthy-efi-system-partition?forum=w8itproinstall
-----------------------------
 

ss_56

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2011
334
15
18,795
I'm still confused about all this. A few months ago, i used macrium reflect to clone my 1tb source drive to a 3tb external hd. when the job was done, the 3tb ext. was now 1tb in size!!! I was able to recover the lost 2tbs in windows computer management, however.

Today, i want to clone my 1tb c: source drive to a new 250gb SSD; the 1tb source drive now only has 247gb of 'used space'. Will macrium reflect only clone the used space? What will the cloning process do with my source drive's remaining free space? Won't it try and clone that as well? Should i delete more files from my source, making it even smaller or is that 247gb okay?

Thanks to all

 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


From the Macrium User guide, under Cloning:
http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Cloning+a+disk
---------------------
Intelligent sector copy Copy only file system sectors/clusters that are in use. This reduces the time to create the clone as unused file system clusters are not copied.
---------------------
That is the default action.

However....247GB of data and a 250GB SSD probably will not work. It will need some free space to work with.
You really need that actual used space to be below 200GB.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Verified and tested cloning steps:

-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
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 SSD
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 as necessary.
Delete the original boot partitions, here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4f1b84ac-b193-40e3-943a-f45d52e23685/cant-delete-extra-healthy-recovery-partitions-and-healthy-efi-system-partition?forum=w8itproinstall
-----------------------------
 
Solution

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


"below 200GB"
199GB might work. :wahoo:

The recent migration tools...Macrium, etc...also leave off stuff that should not go. Pagefile, etc. SO that's some default free space that you do not know about.

I am unsure of the exact free space requirements.
For instance, the Samsung Data Migration requires less than 200GB going into a 250GB drive. It simply will not start otherwise.

Plus, you do not want an SSD filled close to its size limit.
A 250GB drive should not be run over about 200GB full. That free space is needed for the TRIM function to do its thing.
If you clone over 199GB of data, it is already full.

Try it. See what happens.