Question Migrating from HDD to SSD - Dell XPS Tower. How do I do it correctly?

[militarydave]

What up team?

I have a Dell XPS Tower (10th gen Intel i3 - 10100 @ 3.60 GHz / 4-core, 6M cache / 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD with 360W PSU) that I use for mostly for working, (Office programs, spreadsheets, internet browsing, etc.) that I would like to add an SSD as the primary drive.

I recently updated to Windows 11 Home and noticed a drop in response time when booting up, opening simple stuff like word documents or load times on certain webpages such as Amazon when using Chrome. The HDD was slow prior to Windows 11, and now its downright slow.

I found a rather decently priced SSD (Sandisk, 1TB) at Best buy thats 5 minutes away from me.

Does anyone know how I can migrate all my stuff from my HDD to SSD? Is it really just plug-and-play (as in as soon as I click the SSD into place does the computer recognize it?)

I'm not tech savvy when it comes to building PC's or anything (guns are my thing lol) and would like to take this on myself as a DIY if there is a rather effective way to migrate/transfer/clone the HDD to SDD to boot up quicker.

I have an older XPS 13 laptop with SDD that despite being a 2017 model, that thing fires right up. The XPS Tower is a late 2020 model (XPS 8940).

Any help, advice, suggestions are greatly appreciated.

P.S. - I don't mind paying for a migrating software if it in fact works correctly.

v/r,

MD

 

[USAFRet]

Please show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

If conditions and config work out, cloning is a distinct possibility.

 

[Lafong]

P.S. - I don't mind paying for a migrating software if it in fact works correctly.

v/r,

MD

You shouldn't have to pay a dime.

Macrium Reflect Free Edition is the standard advice here.

You can do what you want by either cloning or imaging. Either can work or fail. If one fails, try the other. Macrium does both.

Success rate in the high 90 percentile.

Probably could be done in an hour or so, depending on how much stuff you have and how fast your CPU is. Might take longer for a first-timer.

Get the trial version here. After 30 days, I think it reverts to the free version.

Macrium Reflect Free Trials

Macrium Reflect - Incredibly powerful software that allows you to create and schedule effective backups

www.macrium.com

 

[militarydave]

Please show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

If conditions and config work out, cloning is a distinct possibility.

I'll try and see if I can get the correct screen grab. Not sure if they changed some things on Windows 11 that I was used to easily finding on 10.

 

[militarydave]

You shouldn't have to pay a dime.

Macrium Reflect Free Edition is the standard advice here.

You can do what you want by either cloning or imaging. Either can work or fail. If one fails, try the other. Macrium does both.

Success rate in the high 90 percentile.

Probably could be done in an hour or so, depending on how much stuff you have and how fast your CPU is. Might take longer for a first-timer.

Get the trial version here. After 30 days, I think it reverts to the free version.

Macrium Reflect Free Trials

Macrium Reflect - Incredibly powerful software that allows you to create and schedule effective backups

www.macrium.com

Thank you for the info. So essentially I can buy a new SSD, plug it in, and run the (software) migrator? I plan to backup all the stuff I have on the PC prior to installing or moving anything.

 

[Lafong]

Thank you for the info. So essentially I can buy a new SSD, plug it in, and run the (software) migrator? I plan to backup all the stuff I have on the PC prior to installing or moving anything.

Yeah, that's it. You'd install the new drive and then install Macrium on the current drive and use its menus to start the cloning process. I don't know, maybe 8 or 10 mouse clicks?

Macrium has a bunch of configuration options, but the defaults should certainly work.

Will the new drive be 2.5 inch SATA?

What capacity? Larger than the current drive?

I'd probably try cloning first, ignoring imaging for now.

I'd certainly copy ALL personal data to some other drive before cloning if at all possible to avoid any possible surprises.

The cloning process will do all the necessary formatting, partition making, etc.

New drive should effectively be a replica of the old one.

You'd need to disconnect the OLD drive BEFORE attempting to boot from the new one.

BUT>>>>>>>>>>>>>don't attempt the clone until you post that screen shot of Windows Disk Management.

You could also later use Macrium imaging as an excellent "backup" tool after you get the new SSD set up.

 

[USAFRet]

I'll try and see if I can get the correct screen grab. Not sure if they changed some things on Windows 11 that I was used to easily finding on 10.

The results of your DM window will expose exactly how this should be done.

I have a detailed set of steps for this, but I need to see that DM window first.