Upgrade to SSD Drive

[Franicelcha]

Hi folks

I have ordered the following drive from Newegg.ca on boxing day:

SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-75E250B/AM

I will clone my one TB HDD to this 250 GB SSD using Macrium Reflect.

My questions are as follows:

1-Is there anything special that I have to do in the BIOS after the cloning of the drive ?

2- What is the Samsung Magician Software and what is its porpose exactly ? Is it easy to use ? Do I have to use it absolutely ? What if I do not use it at all ?

3-Could anyone direct me to a procedure that describes in detail the steps to be carried out given that i am upgrading to a smaller drive ? Note that all my data including OS and programs on my 1TB HDD add up to about 150GB.

Thank you

Note: A Happy New Year to all in the great community of Tom's Hardware.

 

[USAFRet]

1. 250GB SSD
2. 150GB total used space on the current drive.
No problem.

Either Macrium Reflect, or the included Samsung Data Migration. I've used both.

In the BIOS, all you need do is enable AHCI mode.

Samsung Magician - performance checker, firmware updater, etc, etc.
Not absolutely critical, but do install it. Quite helpful.

 

[Kurz]

If you have Disk Defrag enabled make sure you disable after you do the clone. (You don't want to shorten the life of the drive.)

 

[geofelt]

1. nothing changes in the bios.
2. Use the Samsung ssd migration tool. It works flawlessly with Samsung drives.
Download the latest version. the version supplied with the ssd is likely old.
Samsung magician is not necessary. I use it first to upgrade the ssd firmware if necessary.
Past that, I uninstall it and do not use the performance optimization options,; they are not necessary and possibly intrusive.
3. After you clone, move the ssd to the original hard drive sata port and you should boot without issue. Attach the hard drive elsewhere and you can delete windows files or format the drive for storage if you want.