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Upgrade to Larger Hard Drive

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jo15765

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Nov 6, 2018
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Hello - I am sure there is a way, I just lack the knowledge of how to do it, I currently have an 80GB SSD drive in my laptop that is 99% full. I am going to purchase a larger SSD Drive and I want to "clone" the 80GB drive over to the larger drive and have it work as if it was the same drive (but just have additional space)

What is the easiest/best way to do this? Or what 3rd party tools do you guys recommend on doing this?

Laptop is currently running Windows 7, but will upgrade to Windows 10 once the hard drive has space for it.
 
You could either use Macrium Reflect Free to clone the current drive onto the new one or if you get a Samsung drive, it’ll come with Samsung Magician that’ll do the job for you.

But, personally I’d be taking the opportunity to install a fresh version of Windows 10 and installing all my software again then coping just my personal files across.
 
Nearly all SSD's manufacturers these days supply cloning software, or have it available for free. As above Macrium or Aomei free programs will do it. Alternatively any backup software that creates system images is able to restore that image to a new drive.

With your new drive ensure it has plenty of free space after all your data is entered as this will reduce the wear to the solid state memory. Don't skimp on size.
 
You could either use Macrium Reflect Free to clone the current drive onto the new one or if you get a Samsung drive, it’ll come with Samsung Magician that’ll do the job for you.

But, personally I’d be taking the opportunity to install a fresh version of Windows 10 and installing all my software again then coping just my personal files across.

I have no room left on the current drive to install any software, can I still use Macrium? I ordered a PNY drive.
 
Nearly all SSD's manufacturers these days supply cloning software, or have it available for free. As above Macrium or Aomei free programs will do it. Alternatively any backup software that creates system images is able to restore that image to a new drive.

With your new drive ensure it has plenty of free space after all your data is entered as this will reduce the wear to the solid state memory. Don't skimp on size.

I ordered a PNY drive - do they have cloning software? -- looks like they recommend Acronis, if I understand the page.

https://www.pny.com/qr/acronis-install
 
And you should be able to reclaim some space on the current drive if you empty the recycle bin, delete old restore points, delete temp files and generally clean up the drive.
Maintenance programs like CCleaner can help with that.
 
PNY comes with Acronis.

Do I have to install Windows onto my drive before I can restore the system image using Acronis or do they have a "boot disk" of sorts that I can use?

EDIT -> I have saved the Acronis image on a USB External Hard Drive (if that makes a difference0
 
Do I have to install Windows onto my drive before I can restore the system image using Acronis or do they have a "boot disk" of sorts that I can use?
Depending on if the version of Acronis supplied by your drive manufacturer comes with the ability to create a boot disc or it allows you to download one. The full paid for version of Acronis will allow both those options. The reason I am hedging here is because Acronis is not a free program and the copy offered by your drive manufacture will definitely have some limitations.

Acronis will however allow you to Clone your drive which is what you want

You could install windows on your new drive and then install Acronis, then restore your image, but that's making a simple job pretty complex.

You might find this a lot simpler to use something like Macrium or Aomei to "Clone" your drive , both free apps that will achieve what you need with simplicity and afterwards allow you to make free system images for safeguarding your data.
 
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