Question How to transfer OS/Data from one SSD to another SSD

[salmansh8]

Hi there!

I have a lenovo yoga 920. I recently ordered a larger SSD for my laptop as I was having space issues. I just don't know how I go about transferring the data? My Laptop has only one SSD slot available. I do have an external HDD that I use for backups but I just don't know if I take a backup of my existing SSD and install the new SSD then how I am going to restore the OS and Data on the new SSD using my external HDD???

Thanks.

 

[Barty1884]

You can clone your OS drive, or you can reinstall your OS.

Cloning would require a SATA to USB adapter cable if you only have room to natively mount one drive.
Various cloning software exists - and most drives come included with a trial license for X software (depending on the drive you buy).
Pretty straightforward in most instances.

OR, you can clean install the OS onto the larger drive & migrate data back over once complete.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-do-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10.3170366/

 

[ktriebol]

Cloning with the USB to SATA cable will work as already mentioned (assuming the SSD in your laptop is SATA), and that is a good choice.

You should also be able to save an image file onto your external hard drive and use that to restore your new drive. Doing that will require some sort of rescue drive in order to restore the image to your new SSD. The reason is that when you install your new SSD, it has no OS on it yet. The rescue drive will give it enough brains to be able to restore from the image, then you will have an entire OS and your old data as well. What system are you using to store backups on that external drive? The documentation for that system should explain how to use a rescue drive to restore from an image.

 

[USAFRet]

Hi there!

I have a lenovo yoga 920. I recently ordered a larger SSD for my laptop as I was having space issues. I just don't know how I go about transferring the data? My Laptop has only one SSD slot available. I do have an external HDD that I use for backups but I just don't know if I take a backup of my existing SSD and install the new SSD then how I am going to restore the OS and Data on the new SSD using my external HDD???

Thanks.

No problem.

Macrium Reflect, and Images.

1. Install Macrium
2. In the Macrium client, create a Rescue CD or USB
3. In the Macrium client, create an Image of your current drive. Select ALL partitions, and tell it to save this Image to your external drive.
4. Physically swap the 2 SSD's
5. Boot up from the Macrium Rescue USB you created in step 2
6. Tell it where the Image is (the external drive), and what drive to apply that to (the new SSD)
7. Go.

Done.


(edited due to fatfingers)

 

[popatim]

This ^^^
Line 2 should read: Create a Rescue CD or USB

Having the image on the external also means you have an easy way to reinstall whenever you need to get back to this point in time. We like to recommend creating a new one regularly, esp when things change in your system, and keeping a fixed number of them so you have choices in how far back you would like to go. For many of us it is the preferred backup method.