Question Swapping primary m.2 between pcs

[pandasaurus]

So, I have my desktop that has I use for gaming, primary drive is a Samsung 960 pro m.2 with a 960 pro ssd as backup.. now i just purchased a gigabyte aero15x that comes with an intel 760p.. now it is only ~20% slower overall but for suswrite it’s like 1366 vs 550.. now I plan on using the aero for the majority of my “work” while the desktop primarily for gaming..
Dilemma here is that the Samsung is the primary for my desktop and the intel will obviously be the primary for the aero.. how hard would it be to literally swap these two drives? Both will have win10pro installed..
What’s the best way to image the drive and will this cause any issues since I’ll be technically swapping m.2s? Know I’ll probably have to edit the bios’ for the Samsung m.2 to probably be recognized, but not too worried about that aspect.
Thank you in advance guys.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

If you're looking to swap the drives without reinstalling Windows, that's a no-no as the hardware in the two systems (crucially the motherboards) is completely different.
Plus, transferring an OEM preinstalled Windows from laptop to another PC would be a breach of Microsoft's user licence conditions anyway.

 

[pandasaurus]

If you're looking to swap the drives without reinstalling Windows, that's a no-no as the hardware in the two systems (crucially the motherboards) is completely different.
Plus, transferring an OEM preinstalled Windows from laptop to another PC would be a breach of Microsoft's user licence conditions anyway.

Think you may be miss understanding, I’m not changing any hardware other than the m.2s.. each win10 will be staying on their respective systems, only the drive will be changing, but unfortunately they are technically the primary for both.

 

[pandasaurus]

I’m looking to image the drives since all I’m changing is the hdd and everything else would be the same.

 

[USAFRet]

The OS is staying with its respective original motherboard?
If so, then you can do this.

Do you have an external drive, large enough to hold the entirety of either (or both) of the SSD's?

Macrium Reflect, and Image both drives on to this external.
Create a Macrium Reflect Rescue USB.
Swap the drives
Boot from the Rescue USB, and tell it where the particular Image is, and what drive you're going to put it on
Repeat for the other system.

 

[Karadjgne]

Not hard. First, make sure both windows are fully updated. Image both drives twice to storage on each pc. Format both. Swap drives. Use USB to reinstall a clean windows. Overwrite the windows with the image #1 from storage. If that fails, you have image #2 as a backup. This sets the drives as primary boot drives during the fresh windows install. This also maintains windows registry to the individual pc's.

 

[pandasaurus]

Yeah I had a feeling it was going to be as simple as that. Thank you guys.

 

[pandasaurus]

Another question for my guys, is; are the intel 760p and a Samsung 960 pro hot swappable? As in, is it safe to plug the Samsung in and pull the intel without removing the battery of the laptop? It’s an internal I believe.

 

[USAFRet]

Another question for my guys, is; are the intel 760p and a Samsung 960 pro hot swappable? As in, is it safe to plug the Samsung in and pull the intel without removing the battery of the laptop? It’s an internal I believe.

Hot swap refers to pulling and connecting a drive while the system and OS is actually running.
If it is OFF, battery status is of no concern.

 

[pandasaurus]

Ah ok, guess I personally always viewed hot swapping as swapping a device where an active power source is present, but yeah guess I just wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t have and leftover voltage, work on back up batteries/power for cell towers so I know all about residual power, just wanted to be safe about it. Last thing I want is to have to rebuy a Samsung960pro m.2.

 

[Karadjgne]

Well, it is. Power is always preset as long as the drive is connected. That's pretty much the definition of a hot-swap, you are swapping a drive while the pc is active and the Sata plug is hot. But to accomplish it, you disengage the drive first, which halts any data flow, not power.