Not a question, but thought I’d post a success story upgrading the M.2 NVMe SSD in my desktop PC. I wanted to replace the original 256GB Toshiba SSD in my 3-yr.-old Dell XPS 8920 with a new WD Black 1TB. I approached this with some trepidation. Since it only has one such slot, I used Macrium Reflect to write an image of the existing SSD to another drive. The physical install was pretty routine -- removing my full-length graphics card gave me access to the slot, and it was just a matter of removing the holding screw and swapping SSDs.
I then booted into Macrium rescue media (I used a CD). I noticed an option, “Write image to new hardware,” but I couldn’t select it because it requires a paid license -- I was using the free version. But I was able to accomplish the same thing by just restoring the image to the new (uninitialized) drive. My old C: drive had six partitions. I dragged them one at a time to the new drive in the same order, with one exception. The partition I needed to enlarge to use the new drive’s additional space was in the middle of the bunch. I dragged this one to the last (rightmost) position, which allowed me to increase its size (leaving a little unused space for overprovisioning). Both the original imaging and restore processes went quicker than I expected; only about 15 min. (The original SSD was only about half full.)
I went into BIOS to make sure it saw the new drive, crossed my fingers and held my breath, and… it booted perfectly from the new drive. Just thought I’d share my experience in case others are considering an NVMe SSD upgrade but are intimidated by the process. Then again, maybe I just got lucky!
I then booted into Macrium rescue media (I used a CD). I noticed an option, “Write image to new hardware,” but I couldn’t select it because it requires a paid license -- I was using the free version. But I was able to accomplish the same thing by just restoring the image to the new (uninitialized) drive. My old C: drive had six partitions. I dragged them one at a time to the new drive in the same order, with one exception. The partition I needed to enlarge to use the new drive’s additional space was in the middle of the bunch. I dragged this one to the last (rightmost) position, which allowed me to increase its size (leaving a little unused space for overprovisioning). Both the original imaging and restore processes went quicker than I expected; only about 15 min. (The original SSD was only about half full.)
I went into BIOS to make sure it saw the new drive, crossed my fingers and held my breath, and… it booted perfectly from the new drive. Just thought I’d share my experience in case others are considering an NVMe SSD upgrade but are intimidated by the process. Then again, maybe I just got lucky!
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