Upgrading existing SSD

badlywornroy

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My Windows 10 PC has a 120GB SSD backed up by a HDD.
I installed this SSD some years ago ( with helpful advice from TP members)
I now need to upgrade this SSD to a larger storage option, 250GB SSD probably.
Please give me your thoughts on my upgrade plan.
I have AOMEI Backupper software that can clone SSD's
I planned to connect the new SSD externally via a USB3 to SATA cable, clone the existing 120GB SSD, then remove and replace with new 250GB SSD.

Have I over simplified this ?

Thank you.
 
I think your upgrade is too small: 500GB, preferably 1TB (around £80 from Amazon).

It can sometimes be good just to reinstall from scratch. But that is more work, and you will certainly find it easier to clone and go.
 
My Windows 10 PC has a 120GB SSD backed up by a HDD.
I installed this SSD some years ago ( with helpful advice from TP members)
I now need to upgrade this SSD to a larger storage option, 250GB SSD probably.
Please give me your thoughts on my upgrade plan.
I have AOMEI Backupper software that can clone SSD's
I planned to connect the new SSD externally via a USB3 to SATA cable, clone the existing 120GB SSD, then remove and replace with new 250GB SSD.

Have I over simplified this ?

Thank you.
This is just fine, but as above go for a bigger ssd if you can. Crucial and Samsung ones are on offer at Amazon.
 
I use a WD_BLACK SN750 NVMe™ SSD but that requires having the right kind of motherboard and playing around a bit on some to get it optimal. Windows 10 runs on this and all my software programs.

I also use a combination of standard SSD (Crucial and Samsung) and HDD (Sata6) as well.

Crucial or Samsung SSD is a great recommendation and I would agree that 1TB is a good size to go for (if in budget) especially during the sales.

I chose to do a fresh install of Windows 10 when I changed to the WD but it probably wasn't necessary. I've just always done that since I started configuring my own PC's back in the early 90's.
 
I planned to connect the new SSD externally via a USB3 to SATA cable, clone the existing 120GB SSD, then remove and replace with new 250GB SSD.

Have I over simplified this ?

That's exactly what I'd do.

A SanDisk 240GB is 33 quid on Amazon right now. A 480 is 43. For an extra tenner I'd double the size.

There are probably faster disks and there are certainly cheaper ones but I've had a lot of SanDisk kit over the years and I can't even remember wishing I'd bought a different brand.
 
That's exactly what I'd do.

A SanDisk 240GB is 33 quid on Amazon right now. A 480 is 43. For an extra tenner I'd double the size.

There are probably faster disks and there are certainly cheaper ones but I've had a lot of SanDisk kit over the years and I can't even remember wishing I'd bought a different brand.

Thanks for the heads up Jonathan, I was just staying with Samsung in case there was any potential 'drawbacks' cloning to a different make of SSD ?
I guess as long as they are both 2.5" SATA all is good eh ?
 
You can use any brand, and general the cloning software should format before cloning.
 
the 1TB SSD`s are a huge bargain these days at £75 - £80 for half decent brands. I remember when they were several hundreds for a very long time and it has taken forever to come down to this.

its upto to you i guess, just the way i see it
 
Hi guys,

I'm back with more questions.

I have cloned the existed 120Gb SSD and replaced with a 240Gb SSD.

PC is up and working.

Now I expected to have unallocated space on the new SSD, and following a video on youtube I expected to see similar to this pic :-

i-Q9ZRwwz.jpg


Video says right click on 'C' (blue bar) and 'Extend volume' by unallocated GB.

In disk management when looking at my new SSD I see this :-

i-hTcr7JV.jpg


N:B Disk1/E is an existing HDD.

I do not understand the 'appearance' of (F:) ? Before swapping SSD's I only saw a 'C' and 'E' disk.

Now I understand that to extend the 'C' drive and add the 112 GB of unallocated space it has to be sequential to the 'C' drive. Hence when I right click
'C' drive 'Extend volume' is greyed out. But of course 'F' drive will let me Extend volume.

I am very wary as of course as 'C' is my boot/operating system drive.

Can anyone advise me please ?
 
I always use this to clone boot disks, not pretty but never failed me.

You need to move F to the back of the disk and then expand C.

Windows creates a small partition for its boot information, in your case, it has been mapped as F, you can remove the drive letter without any consequence.
 
Unfortunately the Windows disk manager is very basic and does not do partition moves. You'll need a third party one, I see your backup brand AOMEI provides one for free: https://www.diskpart.com/free-partition-manager.html

Might be worth re-doing your cloning. When I did it from 128GB Crucial M4 to 960GB Corsair MP510, the system booted up zero problem and it didn't map the tiny windows partition. To Windows it should be completely invisible, this is why I use Clonezilla outside of Windows, boot into Clonezilla USB stick, do a whole disk clone by using its prompts, and afterwards Windows doesn't even know its disk have changed. None of "Copy of C" and F drive headache.
 
Ok, I'm good. After another think, it seemed obvious to me that the boot files were on 'C' and the 860 MB NTFS 'F' partition contained nothing important.
I braced myself and deleted partition 'F' . . . . . . . All ok ! now I can extend 'C' because the unallocated space is contiguous.
Done and I have the 'C' drive @ 240 GB and my work here is done. :)
 
I’ve always used macruim reflect software to clone the drive but last time when I upgraded to a Samsung 2TB it wouldn’t work so I used Samsung’s own cloning software which works perfectly
 
My recent experience is both aomei and acronis can't get the job done properly and clonezilla requires gpt type image to even boot on certain laptops. This is not available. I reckon gparted, Ubuntu and DD is the way to go.
 
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