Question How do I transfer data from my old m2 drive to a new one?

[zekeandej]

I bought a 1tb Intel 660 m2 drive to replace my maxed out adata 256gb m2 boot drive. What is the simplest method to copy my data to the new drive? There's only one m2 socket on the motherboard, can I use a pci slot?

 

[USAFRet]

No, don't use a PCIe slot.
Do you have an external drive of some sort, large enough to hold the contents of your current drive? Any external thing will do.

 

[zekeandej]

Yes, I've got an old 320gb laptop drive in an external case that I used to backup the laptop before I started doubling it up in the cloud. That should make enough space. It's only USB2, but I seem to have more time than money. Do you have a preference between imaging and cloning? I've cloned a couple successfully, but pros seem to use (or at least talk about) imaging.

Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

For this particular situation, Imaging is indicated.

Thusly:

1. Download and install Macrium Reflect
2. Run that, and create a Rescue CD or USB (you'll use this later). "Other Tasks"
3. In the Macrium client, create an Image to some other drive. External USB HDD, maybe. Select all partitions. This results in a file of xxxx.mrimage
4. When done, power OFF.
5. Swap the 2 drives
6. Boot up from the Rescue USB you created earlier.
7. Recover, and tell it where the Image is that you created in step 3, and which drive to apply it to...the new m.2
8. Go, and wait until it finishes.
9. That's all...this should work.