Question MBR or GTP, BIOS or UEFI and SSD cloning questions!

[kourades26]

Hello everyone. I'm getting tomorrow my new 1tb ssd and as I was searching for ways to clone my old one, I found out about these terms I didn't understand; MBR and GTP when setting up a new partition. As far as I could tell, MBR is the "old way" and good for SSDs under 2TB and if you boot with BIOS and GTP is for bigger drives and UEFI boot. I checked my current SSD (with OS installed) and it's in MBR and I am currently booting with BIOS.
My question is this: Should I change to UEFI? My motherboard does support it (B450M-K II) but I honestly have no idea what is the difference.

And for the last part since I found many videos... What software do you recommend to clone my OS ssd to the new one? I currently have a samsung 850 evo 256GB and the new one will be a WD SN850x.

Thank you for your time!

 

[USAFRet]

What software do you recommend to clone my OS ssd to the new one?

Macrium Reflect.
Or, if a Samsung SSD target drive, Samsung Data Migration.


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Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
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Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
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 all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
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[Lafong]

May as well go UEFI. You might be able to concoct a reason not to, but I can't think of one offhand.

 

[MWink64]

IF you're buying a drive no more than 2TB, AND you're cloning an old install, AND it's currently MBR/BIOS (technically the UEFI's CSM), I'd just leave it MBR/BIOS. Trying to convert it to GPT, with UEFI boot, just adds more potential for things to go wrong. This is a case of don't fix what isn't broken. If you were doing a fresh install, then I'd suggest going GPT, with UEFI boot.