Migrating Win7 to new SSD..?
Discussion
Morning chaps..
I have a PC workstation that I built about 5 years ago and have been meaning to upgrade now that the Haswell-E processors are out; now my system HDD is on its last legs and I'm getting startup failures / freezes / slow running and BSOD STOP errors, I figure I should do it before I lose 5 years of work and probably my mind!
I'm a fairly competent DIY user, but have never had to do this before. There's plenty on the Internet about creating system images and transferring, but I think due to the sheer volume of irreplaceable files I have (lots of CAD / CAE and self-developed software) any kind of data loss in the process would be unthinkable, so I'd like to make sure I do it right.
I have a 2nd internal mass storage drive, so can temporarily move things over or save an image there, and plenty of USB drives too. So what's involved in doing this right, first time? I have lots of installed CAD / CAE programs that I don't want to have to re-install. Would creating a system image of the OS drive keep all of this? I can create multiple backups of my work, so that isn't so much of a problem, it's just making sure all my programs and settings migrate seamlessly to the new HDD.
I'll go solid state for the new OS drive, and have space for 6 HDD's in my case if I want to create a RAID. What do you recommend? I haven't created a RAID yet.. so is this something that I would be wise to do?
I have a PC workstation that I built about 5 years ago and have been meaning to upgrade now that the Haswell-E processors are out; now my system HDD is on its last legs and I'm getting startup failures / freezes / slow running and BSOD STOP errors, I figure I should do it before I lose 5 years of work and probably my mind!
I'm a fairly competent DIY user, but have never had to do this before. There's plenty on the Internet about creating system images and transferring, but I think due to the sheer volume of irreplaceable files I have (lots of CAD / CAE and self-developed software) any kind of data loss in the process would be unthinkable, so I'd like to make sure I do it right.
I have a 2nd internal mass storage drive, so can temporarily move things over or save an image there, and plenty of USB drives too. So what's involved in doing this right, first time? I have lots of installed CAD / CAE programs that I don't want to have to re-install. Would creating a system image of the OS drive keep all of this? I can create multiple backups of my work, so that isn't so much of a problem, it's just making sure all my programs and settings migrate seamlessly to the new HDD.
I'll go solid state for the new OS drive, and have space for 6 HDD's in my case if I want to create a RAID. What do you recommend? I haven't created a RAID yet.. so is this something that I would be wise to do?
Bugger. 
Is there any way I could transfer the programs without having to re-install the lot? It would take me weeks to re-install all my CAD & CAE programs.. let alone get all the preferences back how they were!
As a slight diversion.. since I do a lot of resource heavy work, is it worth going for a Xeon-based workstation, rather than using i7? My setup is 5 years old and based on the very first i7 & x58 chipset, so I am looking to upgrade processor, motherboard, graphics, and hard drives. I think if I'm going to all that effort, it might be better for me to fork out for 2 Xeon processors than one ultra-expensive i7. If I wanted quad core, that's £800 for a 5930X.. for that price I could get 2 6-core Xeon e5-2620 v3 processors. Now.. the detailed specs are probably far beyond my current comprehension, but 12 cores on 2 processors vs 8 cores on one sounds like a win.
Is there any way I could transfer the programs without having to re-install the lot? It would take me weeks to re-install all my CAD & CAE programs.. let alone get all the preferences back how they were!
As a slight diversion.. since I do a lot of resource heavy work, is it worth going for a Xeon-based workstation, rather than using i7? My setup is 5 years old and based on the very first i7 & x58 chipset, so I am looking to upgrade processor, motherboard, graphics, and hard drives. I think if I'm going to all that effort, it might be better for me to fork out for 2 Xeon processors than one ultra-expensive i7. If I wanted quad core, that's £800 for a 5930X.. for that price I could get 2 6-core Xeon e5-2620 v3 processors. Now.. the detailed specs are probably far beyond my current comprehension, but 12 cores on 2 processors vs 8 cores on one sounds like a win.
You can do a sysprep
http://windows7easy.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/trans...
Then clone the old hard drive to the new ssd
My steps are:
Shrink existing hard drive partition to smaller than the SSD (Use Gparted live CD)
Run sysprep command, set to shutdown and generalise. This removes the hardware profile from the machine.
Clone the drive using Clonezilla live CD
Boot up new drive and your good to go
http://windows7easy.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/trans...
Then clone the old hard drive to the new ssd
My steps are:
Shrink existing hard drive partition to smaller than the SSD (Use Gparted live CD)
Run sysprep command, set to shutdown and generalise. This removes the hardware profile from the machine.
Clone the drive using Clonezilla live CD
Boot up new drive and your good to go
Edited by rossmc88 on Monday 15th September 13:16
There are several ways to clone your C: or whatever drive your apps and OS are on to a new SSD, a lot of them come with something like Acronis TrueImage to do just that. To be honest though, your instability issues etc. are likely to be caused by a five year old Win7 install (they just seem to lose their s
t over time) rather than hardware problems. Migrating that to a new drive is likely to result in the issues going with it.
Further to that, if you're doing all of that in a new PC then you may have other issues as some hardware drivers will be missing etc. Time to back up your data and do a fresh install.
t over time) rather than hardware problems. Migrating that to a new drive is likely to result in the issues going with it.Further to that, if you're doing all of that in a new PC then you may have other issues as some hardware drivers will be missing etc. Time to back up your data and do a fresh install.
Ok thanks for the advice. W7 has been gradually getting slower and taking longer to boot up, but the instability problems came very suddenly and certainly seem consistent with HDD failures I've experienced in the past. But I think you're right, a clean install would be the best way forwards once I have the new setup. Looks like I'll have to keep the computer down for the time being until I have the parts to upgrade.
Whether that's to a new i7 or dual-processor Xeon is still an open question.. thankfully it will take me a little while to save up the money for either so I can have a good think.
Whether that's to a new i7 or dual-processor Xeon is still an open question.. thankfully it will take me a little while to save up the money for either so I can have a good think.
Don't clone the disk, you are getting bad advice! You have to reinstall as setup.exe in the winpe phase works out you have an SSD and tunes the install accordingly. This cannot be done post-install. Otherwise, don't bother with an SSD if you really need to clone.
An alternative could be to use disk2vhd to convert your existing computer into a virtual one, then run it on hyper-v on windows 8.
An alternative could be to use disk2vhd to convert your existing computer into a virtual one, then run it on hyper-v on windows 8.
lukefreeman said:
When I bought my Samsung 840 it came with some software and an USB cable to just clone what was on current crucial drive at the time....worked fine, then just popped it in the computer and booted up
Same here, just cloned my 500GB HD drive direct to the SSD, plugged it in and voila - instant speed boost. Been working like this for 18 months+ now...This is what I did. I replaced a 1Tb hard disk with a 480Gb SSD.
I decided my old HDD was full of crap I did not need apart from photos and CD's I had ripped years ago. This amounted to about 50Gb of the used space..i.e. nothing...but represent a lot of time and effort. Most of the rest of space was taken up with my steam account and a load of rubbish software I never used.
I did this
1) Downloaded all of the drivers for my PC from the interwebs
2) Downloaded all of the applications I actually use from the interwebs
3) Installed the SSD into the PC
4) Changed the BIOS to boot from the SSD
5) Installed Windows onto the SSD
The old hard drive was now visible in Windows as drive D:
I then did this
6) Installed the drivers I downloaded in step 1
7) Installed the software I downloaded in step 2..for Steam I installed the software and then copied the old steam directory from the D: drive over the top of the newly installed one in order to save downloading 100Gb of files.
8) Deleted everything off of the D:\ drive apart from my actual data.
I decided my old HDD was full of crap I did not need apart from photos and CD's I had ripped years ago. This amounted to about 50Gb of the used space..i.e. nothing...but represent a lot of time and effort. Most of the rest of space was taken up with my steam account and a load of rubbish software I never used.
I did this
1) Downloaded all of the drivers for my PC from the interwebs
2) Downloaded all of the applications I actually use from the interwebs
3) Installed the SSD into the PC
4) Changed the BIOS to boot from the SSD
5) Installed Windows onto the SSD
The old hard drive was now visible in Windows as drive D:
I then did this
6) Installed the drivers I downloaded in step 1
7) Installed the software I downloaded in step 2..for Steam I installed the software and then copied the old steam directory from the D: drive over the top of the newly installed one in order to save downloading 100Gb of files.
8) Deleted everything off of the D:\ drive apart from my actual data.
lukefreeman said:
When I bought my Samsung 840 it came with some software and an USB cable to just clone what was on current crucial drive at the time....worked fine, then just popped it in the computer and booted up
Same here. Did mine at the weekend. Backed up all data to my server and reduce the amount of data on the drive, used the Samsung software to clone the drive, then used the other Samsung software to tune Windows to get the best performance. Then copied all my data back to the old drive once I had formatted it.CamMoreRon said:
Ok thanks for the advice. W7 has been gradually getting slower and taking longer to boot up, but the instability problems came very suddenly and certainly seem consistent with HDD failures I've experienced in the past. But I think you're right, a clean install would be the best way forwards once I have the new setup. Looks like I'll have to keep the computer down for the time being until I have the parts to upgrade.
Whether that's to a new i7 or dual-processor Xeon is still an open question.. thankfully it will take me a little while to save up the money for either so I can have a good think.
The processor will depend on your primary software requirements. Whether that's to a new i7 or dual-processor Xeon is still an open question.. thankfully it will take me a little while to save up the money for either so I can have a good think.
I thought I was doing the right thing speccing expensive multi-core processors. Luckily I checked with our AutoCAD support and they advise the version of Inventor we use benefits from faster processors, rather than many cores as it's not been optimized for them. Saved over a hundred quid per desktop.
Hardware requirements for CFD are cores x lots and RAM x even more.
It seems 4GB per core is a sensible requirement, so an 8-core would require 32GB RAM, and more memory channels = better, so a dual-CPU machine would be best. I need to work out whether my license is for 8 processes maximum or 32, and that will dictate how many cores I really need. I think a minimum of 12 is a safe bet, as it leaves me a few cores to process applications while Fluent solves in the background.
I think I'm going to go for something like a Supermicro X10DAC, which is a twin-socket board that will take the latest Xeon CPU's, then use 2 6-core Xeon e5 processors and as much RAM as I can afford. The board can take 1TB.
It seems 4GB per core is a sensible requirement, so an 8-core would require 32GB RAM, and more memory channels = better, so a dual-CPU machine would be best. I need to work out whether my license is for 8 processes maximum or 32, and that will dictate how many cores I really need. I think a minimum of 12 is a safe bet, as it leaves me a few cores to process applications while Fluent solves in the background.
I think I'm going to go for something like a Supermicro X10DAC, which is a twin-socket board that will take the latest Xeon CPU's, then use 2 6-core Xeon e5 processors and as much RAM as I can afford. The board can take 1TB.
dododo said:
Don't clone the disk, you are getting bad advice! You have to reinstall as setup.exe in the winpe phase works out you have an SSD and tunes the install accordingly. This cannot be done post-install. Otherwise, don't bother with an SSD if you really need to clone.
Can you provide links to any documentation on this? I was about to do just that.8bit said:
dododo said:
Don't clone the disk, you are getting bad advice! You have to reinstall as setup.exe in the winpe phase works out you have an SSD and tunes the install accordingly. This cannot be done post-install. Otherwise, don't bother with an SSD if you really need to clone.
Can you provide links to any documentation on this? I was about to do just that.That said, on a 5-year-old install I wouldn't consider cloning. It would be a brand-new install for me, regardless of any pain migrating applications.
I always clone the drive and I've done loads! Installing all the applications and their settings plus restoring data takes too long plus some of the newer drives have their own in-built way of dealing with TRIM.
The only time I wouldn't clone is if windows is actually broken or in need of serious attention.
The only time I wouldn't clone is if windows is actually broken or in need of serious attention.
I'm not aware of any SSD specific optimisations implemented by WinPE.
An important consideration would be to ensure that your partition offsets are aligned with 4Kb sector boundaries but as Win7 does this with a default offset of 1024KB its not really a concern unless the Win7 partition you are cloning has been created incorrectly, most likely arising from an upgrade from XP.
In any case the destination partition can be created manually if one wants to be certain, and most cloning tools I've seen are also aware...
I would generally advocate performing a fresh install anyway - but not for this reason.
An important consideration would be to ensure that your partition offsets are aligned with 4Kb sector boundaries but as Win7 does this with a default offset of 1024KB its not really a concern unless the Win7 partition you are cloning has been created incorrectly, most likely arising from an upgrade from XP.
In any case the destination partition can be created manually if one wants to be certain, and most cloning tools I've seen are also aware...
I would generally advocate performing a fresh install anyway - but not for this reason.
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