How to move C drive with Acronis True Image?

[Astralv]

Hey, guys
My Windows 8.1 music production computer has 5 drives and C drive with OS, which is 240 Gb Intel 520 SSD has only 20 Gb left. I need to move to larger SSD. I would love to have 1Tb SSD, but I cannot afford it. It almost not worth the trouble to move to 500 Gb drive, is it?
So I bought Acronis True Image 2015. How do I move the content of C drive to the new drive? I understand it will make Image file of my system? Well- my system has 5 drives, I only need to move one drive. Where does it store the image file? What would be my steps?

Lets say I buy 500 Gb SSD and install it. It becomes K drive
I install Acronis on the C drive, right? It likely would ask where I want to back up my system? Do I select my newly installed K drive? Will it create bootable drive with folders and directories right away, or should I create Image file on some other (external or internal drive), and then use “Restore” function to install on the new SSD K drive? How will it become C drive? Do I need to take out old C drive? Will K become C, or should I wait and not install SSD, do the image file first and then install new SSD after removing old C? I also just bought 4 TB WD Black, so I can store the image on it and then restore it to the SSD, is it the right way to do it? Will it let me select what drive I want to create image of? I don’t need image of all 5 drives, I just need one- hope it is flexible. Any advice will be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[USAFRet]

In the Acronis application, you select one source drive, and one target drive. It can go directly from one drive to the other.
That target drive then becomes the C drive.

Or, you can save an image of that drive, and then apply that image to the new drive.

Either way works.
But the one step direct migration is the easiest.

It's hard to make the wrong selections. The main thing you have to watch for is to be sure the small System Reserved partition is also selected. If it doesn't also get migrated, tears will follow.

And Acronis is not the only application that can do this. Easus Todo, Macrium Reflect, Casper, Samsung includes one with their drives.

 

[USAFRet]

However...are you absolutely sure you can't simply free up some space on that current 240GB drive, instead of migrating to a whole different drive?

Investigate exactly what is sucking up that space. Maybe move some music files to elsewhere.
WinDirStat can help visualize where your space is.

Also, there are many Windows functions that may be sucking up your space.
Restore points, temp files, whatever is in your download folder.

A bigger C drive and migration might not be needed at all.

 

[Astralv]

I have read some bad review for Acronis but it was on sale for $15, so I bought it. I have Samsung Magician installed already- is it what I was supposed to use? Should I use it instead of Acronis?

Remember- we talked about it- we checked restore points and temp files. Where is it- I would look again (thank you). I look at this drive every night and it gets smaller and smaller. For example when it install Windows updates, it drops way down to like 17Gb, then back up to 18 Gb. It was at 21 Gb last night. I uninstalled something that was holding 2 Gb of space...I dont think I got back exactly 2 Gb. With SSDs, the way it fills the blocks with data, some time, uninstalling things not bring the space back. With music software, it likes to install everything on C. I select other drives, but then I find folders on C drive. It has samples and effects libraries, that it stores under Users, under "Program Data", and in other unexpected locations, and if I move folder, it not able to find its components, and it fails, and then it fails to load projects that were using this plugin. It is very sensitive. There are few progms that have 3-5 Gb each, I can uninstall them and reinstall to the new HDD, but often they leave their folders to delete manually and it still hard and can create instability. If I free another 20 Gb, it may hold me for another 6 months... then the 1 TB drive may become less expansive... Also... Windows 10 about to be released. In the music circles everybody planning on waiting. The issue is with USB drivers for hardware synths and possibly software synths as well. I like to update OS ASAP. With that in mind, I would still need space.

I was thinking to get bigger drive, migrate Win 8.1 system and update it to Win 10, and see if everything works. If not- I will still have my old C drive available. But 500 Gb is not that much bigger, right?

 

[USAFRet]

OK...the Samsung Data Migration application works just fine. I've used it. But it only works with Samsung drives, not Intel.

500GB vs the current 240GB is twice as much...

So...buy a new larger drive
Connect it.
Disconnect all other drives except the current C (not a critical thing, but will absolutely prevent mistakes)
Run the application. Samsung or Acronis.
Follow the prompts.


And don't be too eager to upgrade to Win 10 on your primary PC. No one knows what small issues there may be during this rollout. Remember...Microsoft is trying to manage a potential billion devices in this upgrade.

Let other people be the guinea pigs. And it won't happen directly on July 29 for everyone. Your particular device may not get the upgrade for weeks.

 

[Astralv]

Well- with Windows 8.0 to Windows 8.1 I was a guinea pig, updated in the first hour it became available. It was a disaster. My music computer is 3770K, my main everyday computer is Haswell 4770K. That thing freaked out. It lost ALLLLLLLLL usb support. Asus Z87 Deluxe motherboard had no PS2 ports, so I could not connect any keyboard or mouse. Believe it or now- I had to wipe the entire system out and start all over. It was only 3 months old, but I had to reinstall Windows, drivers, games... I was trying to find a way to fix it for 2 days- nothing would make USB work. So now- I am afraid it will have the same issue. I was actually about to post on Windows 10 about the drivers and upgrade to Win 10. My Ivy Bridge system (music computer we talking about here) was updated few month after release and had no issues with anything. I have about 300 software synth titles and they all made it in to the new environment. But if I was to upgrade, I would do my Haswell first. The USB issue was some how related to the Fan Expert software they said... I guess- I would have to take my chances... Need to do a back up first...

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, for any major change, hardware or software, have a good backup.

With Acronis, make an image of your current C drive, and save that image elsewhere. Just in case.
Then do the upgrade.

(you should be making regular images or backups anyway)

 

[Astralv]

Well- I make Backups with Seagate Dashboard. It is incremental back ups- they back up every time something is added. The issue with it I have is that when it runs out of the drive space and I start new drive, it starts all over. I am tired of buying external drives. The advantage is that I have everything if I need to repopulate individual files or folders... It looks weird- it backs up by date and has folders with only new things. Like if I store new library on Monday, that backup will have only one library for that day.. So if I want to manually restore it... I dont know... I know it doing something. lol.

 

[USAFRet]

Incremental backups daily. A full backup weekly.
Delete old full backups. No need to keep a full backup from 6 months ago.

 

[Astralv]

You mean- to run full back up manually every week, disregarding of my incremental back ups, or do you mean that Seagate software already doing this?

What I dislike is that it runs out of space and starts all over on a new drive. It can not remember where it was left off with incremental when I change the drive. Am I doing something wrong? Logically, it should know that if it ran out of a disk space, it will ask for the new drive and then continue incremental backups. But- no- it starts all over and does full system first, which is annoying because it takes so long and then it fills new drive right away and soon it says again that it needs new drive. So you mean- re-format the drive it filled and let it use it, and then when it filled- re-format the other one? Right now I have 2 drives: 1 TB and 2 TBs for back ups. So I ran out of space on 1 TB drive, so I gave it 2 TB drive. Now it has 1.5 Tb filled, which means- I can not use 1 TB drive any longer because it will start over and fill it and say- not enough space. It would help if it continued incremental on 1 TB drive without attempting to write the full back up on it. So now what- buy 3 TB? I know it designed to suck all our money, but it gets ridiculous.

 

[USAFRet]

I mean run an incremental every day, and a full once a week. Keep maybe a couple weeks. Delete the old ones.
I have no idea what your Seagate thing is doing.

But you are probably saving backups from 6 months ago. They are simply taking up space.

 

[Astralv]

I mean run an incremental every day, and a full once a week. Keep maybe a couple weeks. Delete the old ones.
I have no idea what your Seagate thing is doing.

But you are probably saving backups from 6 months ago. They are simply taking up space.

Just closed wrong window and lost everything I typed.

The incremental back ups depend on the first full back up. The Seagate software backs whole system first and then adds to it as I save something. If I don't save- it does not have to do anything. If I delete first full back up, it will make all incremental updates useless. It will look at the system, compare it to the backup drive data and back up everything missing, which would be everything I deleted. My complain is that when I start on a new drive, it does the same thing and backs up whole system first, instead of remembering that it already did it on the old drive.

Back to the topic... I am struggling with decision to buy Samsung 500 Gb or 1 TB. I need to get 1 TB and not worry about space for a while. 500 Gb feels like temporary solution. But my money disappear as fast as hard drive space. Can not afford $379 for 1 TB. Also New Egg sent me 10% coupon...

So when this Win 10 roll out slows down- do you think SSDs will go down in price? They just released 2 TB drives, which cost ridiculous- $800. But I am wondering if the 1 TB would go down any. With 10% coupon it is $342 now...

 

[USAFRet]

The release of Win 10 has pretty much nothing to do with the retail price of SSD's.

The incremental back ups depend on the first full back up.

That is why you also regularly do a full backup. Having 6 months (or more) of incrementals, all depending on that very first full backup, is a waste of space.

But at least you have some backup in place. Unlike most people...

 

[Astralv]

Well- the prices of SSDs depend partially on the market. If people buy them, no need to lower the price, and people buy them now for Win 10 upgrades.

I am not sure I follow you on incremental back ups. How it is a waste of space? It takes exactly the space needed for the full system. It does not duplicate files. Lets say, my first full back up contains "ABSDEFGH" files (not drives). Later I save files "IJK". The back up only adds IJK to the drive. If I delete "ABSDEFGH" (6 months old back up), it will have to do it again, and if it did not change, there is no reason to delete and back it up again. The whole system fits now on 1.5 TB of space. Deleting first back up not going to buy any space because it will back it up again when it detects that those files are missing. It does not back up the same thing over and over again. The latest back ups some time have only one file in them.

 

[USAFRet]

Well, currently you have a couple of TB in backups. What precisely is in that? Just the drives in their current state? Or can you retrieve the state from 90 days ago?

 

[Astralv]

This is how it goes: It backs up ABCDEFG files. Next day I save file H, and it backs it up. Next day.... They are folders. So earlier folders are large and later folders are small. If I wanted to manually restore just one folder, I would find early version of it, copy it and then have to copy all latest files it saved. I dont like this approach because it makes it hard to restore individual folders. But it would do it automatically if the system fails and needs restore. It supposed to restore everything back. Other words, lets say I saved "Win10Manual" file today and nothing else. In back up folder of today there will be only file "Win10Manual". If I go back to last week back up, those folders would not have this file. It only backs up what new.

So my understanding is that all system should be about 1.5 TB made from content stored on 5 different drives. So I do not need back up stored on 1TB drive now because it already made new full system when I switched to 2 TB drive, and the data on 1 TB drive is useless because it contains no latest files, so I may as well use that drive for something else. But that is my understanding. When 1st drive was running out of space, it said, "Please, provide new drive". I thought- it would continue to make little back ups, but it started all over (I think). It would be sux if I delete first drive and then when I need to restore, it would ask for 1st drive... May be this is a question for Seagate forums, but those forums have many users that have no idea what they talking about.