[SOLVED] Storage Migration but only 1 M.2 slot...

[tinycanoe]

I got a Gigabyte GA-Z270-HD3 motherboard with only 1 slot for an SSD. I have a Samsung 960 250GB in there now with the OS and a couple other things on it and then a 3TB normal HDD through SATA. I've got a new Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB that I'm looking to switch the old small 960 for but I need to migrate all the data including the OS to it. My issue is all the migrating software I can find requires the new SSD to also be plugged in at the same time. I see there are some USB to M.2 adapters for pretty cheap (and I'm prepared to buy one if necessary) but I was hoping there would be another way. Perhaps migrating it to the HDD and then install the new SDD and migrate it back to that one? I'm not sure, can anyone shine some light on this topic that I don't know too much about? I'm willing to buy a software if necessary, the money is not really the issue, it's mainly a time constraint that I'm trying to finish this for. Thanks everyone!

-Trevor

 

[Lafong]

Not sure I ever heard of a mother board with "only 1 slot for an SSD".

Do you mean only one empty slot? Most motherboards have at least 4 ports to connect drives to. Usually 6 or more.

Or do you mean M.2 ports?

You can use "imaging" to do what you want.

You'd make an "image file" of all partitions on the 250.

Save that file on another drive, possibly on your 3 TB.

Then remove the old drive.

Install the new drive where the old drive was.

Then "restore" that image file to the new drive.

How much space is now occupied on the 250?

How much free space on the 3 TB?

Macrium Reflect free edition is a good tool to do this.

But...........know what you will do if it fails...that would probably be a clean install.

 

[tinycanoe]

Not sure I ever heard of a mother board with "only 1 slot for an SSD".

Do you mean only one empty slot? Most motherboards have at least 4 ports to connect drives to. Usually 6 or more.

Or do you mean M.2 ports?

You can use "imaging" to do what you want.

You'd make an "image file" of all partitions on the 250.

Save that file on another drive, possibly on your 3 TB.

Then remove the old drive.

Install the new drive where the old drive was.

Then "restore" that image file to the new drive.

How much space is now occupied on the 250?

How much free space on the 3 TB?

Macrium Reflect free edition is a good tool to do this.

But...........know what you will do if it fails...that would probably be a clean install.

Sorry, I meant only 1 M.2 port and it was being occupied by the old 960 250GB.

I'm not sure what "imaging" is but I'm sure I can read up on that.

204GB used on the old one.

1.4TB free on the current HDD so there should be more than enough free space on that one to hold the image file.

 

[Lafong]

Sorry, I meant only 1 M.2 port and it was being occupied by the old 960 250GB.

I'm not sure what "imaging" is but I'm sure I can read up on that.

204GB used on the old one.

1.4TB free on the current HDD so there should be more than enough free space on that one to hold the image file.

OK; read up on Macrium; you can get help here on it too.

The image file will be somewhere around 120 GB; save it on the 3 TB. Plenty of space there for it.

General idea on Macrium;

install it on the current drive.

Immediately after installing, look at the menus. Make "rescue media" on a USB flash drive.

Confirm you can boot from this rescue media.

Make an image file of all partitions on the 250. Save that file to the 3 TB. You can accept defaults. 6 or 7 mouse clicks. Might take 10 or 20 minutes.

Shut down.

Swap drives.

Boot from the rescue media you just made. That will lead you to the Macrium interface. It's a bit slow, but that's normal.

Look again at the menus for "restore". Walk through the steps to do that, making sure that the new drive is the target for the restore.

Shut down again. Remove the rescue media.

Cross fingers.

Hope you can boot from the new drive. Should appear just like the old drive, with the same partitions, but a lot more free space that you can then add to whatever partition you want.

 

[tinycanoe]

OK; read up on Macrium; you can get help here on it too.

The image file will be somewhere around 120 GB; save it on the 3 TB. Plenty of space there for it.

General idea on Macrium;

install it on the current drive.

Immediately after installing, look at the menus. Make "rescue media" on a USB flash drive.

Confirm you can boot from this rescue media.

Make an image file of all partitions on the 250. Save that file to the 3 TB. You can accept defaults. 6 or 7 mouse clicks. Might take 10 or 20 minutes.

Shut down.

Swap drives.

Boot from the rescue media you just made. That will lead you to the Macrium interface. It's a bit slow, but that's normal.

Look again at the menus for "restore". Walk through the steps to do that, making sure that the new drive is the target for the restore.

Shut down again. Remove the rescue media.

Cross fingers.

Hope you can boot from the new drive. Should appear just like the old drive, with the same partitions, but a lot more free space that you can then add to whatever partition you want.

Worked like a charm! Thanks so much!

-Trevor

 

[mdd1963]

you can image to any large enough spinning hard drive with your preferred app (Macrium Reflect, Clonezilla, RescueZilla, etc.), replace the NVME drive, boot from rescue media and, restore that image to the new drive...

 

[USAFRet]

For future reference:

1x m.2 slot with an Image

Assuming you have another drive with sufficient free space to hold the entirety of your current m.2 drive:

1. Download and install Macrium Reflect
2. Run that, and create a Rescue CD or USB (you'll use this later). "Other Tasks"
3. In the Macrium client, create an Image to some other drive. External USB HDD, maybe. Select all partitions. This results in a file of xxxx.mrimage
4. When done, power OFF.
5. Swap the 2 drives
6. Boot up from the Rescue USB you created earlier.
7. Restore (on the toolbar), and tell it where the Image is that you created in step 3, and which drive to apply it to...the new m.2
8. Go, and wait until it finishes.
9. That's all...this should work.