- My Forums
- Tiger Rant
- LSU Recruiting
- SEC Rant
- Saints Talk
- Pelicans Talk
- More Sports Board
- Fantasy Sports
- Golf Board
- Soccer Board
- O-T Lounge
- Tech Board
- Home/Garden Board
- Outdoor Board
- Health/Fitness Board
- Movie/TV Board
- Book Board
- Music Board
- Political Talk
- Money Talk
- Fark Board
- Gaming Board
- Travel Board
- Food/Drink Board
- Ticket Exchange
- TD Help Board
Customize My Forums- View All Forums
- Show Left Links
- Topic Sort Options
- Trending Topics
- Recent Topics
- Active Topics
Started By
Message
Migrating Win 10 on laptop from standard HD to NVMe M.2
Posted on 6/21/21 at 9:24 am
Posted on 6/21/21 at 9:24 am
Been thinking about this upgrade for a while. Found a good primeday 1TB NVMe M.2 and I think I'm going to make the jump. I would like to keep my existing 1tb 2.5 traditional spinning HD as additional storage. I've cracked open the machine before to do a memory upgrade, and the physical change over I have no issues completing.
Where I'm a bit confused is how do I migrate the operating system to the new drive and get the machine to boot from there? I've youtubed the topic to death, but honestly I trust the folks here more than some random youtuber.
Thanks in advance.
Where I'm a bit confused is how do I migrate the operating system to the new drive and get the machine to boot from there? I've youtubed the topic to death, but honestly I trust the folks here more than some random youtuber.
Thanks in advance.
7
Posted on 6/21/21 at 9:28 am to Lonnie Utah
Depending on the brand of the SSD, it might come with free transfer tools. I know Samsung has it
Posted on 6/21/21 at 9:55 am to Lonnie Utah
Posted on 6/21/21 at 9:57 am to Lonnie Utah
Silly question... Does the laptop actually have an NVMe M.2 Slot?
Posted on 6/21/21 at 10:44 am to SG_Geaux
quote:
Silly question... Does the laptop actually have an NVMe M.2 Slot?
Yes.
Posted on 6/21/21 at 10:45 am to Zapparocks
quote:
You can find the Samsung data migration tool here LINK
works well
Excellent. Thank you.
Posted on 6/21/21 at 10:57 am to Lonnie Utah
quote:
Where I'm a bit confused is how do I migrate the operating system to the new drive and get the machine to boot from there?
Are you wanting to migrate the OS or just the data on the machine? If you're wanting to migrate the OS itself, it's going to take a lot more expertise and work.
There are mirroring tools out there, though.
Posted on 6/21/21 at 11:24 am to shspanthers
quote:
Are you wanting to migrate the OS or just the data on the machine? If you're wanting to migrate the OS itself, it's going to take a lot more expertise and work.
Everything. I would want the SSD to be the new boot drive.
Posted on 6/21/21 at 11:59 am to Lonnie Utah
Depending on the programs you have on the machine, and if you have Win10 installation media, you could pull the old HD, install the new SSD and do a clean install of Win10 on the SSD which would make sure it is the default boot drive.
But, that would mean reinstalling all of your programs, customizations, etc.
You can also look into cloning the drive as was mentioned above.
But, that would mean reinstalling all of your programs, customizations, etc.
You can also look into cloning the drive as was mentioned above.
Posted on 6/21/21 at 1:40 pm to Lonnie Utah
quote:
Everything. I would want the SSD to be the new boot drive.
You have two options:
1) Install windows on the new drive and then reinstall your apps/programs and copy over your data. I would guess 95-99% of home users go this route.
Or 2) clone the drive and deal with a variety of potential issues like driver incompatibilities and unknown/unrecognized hardware and a higher technical and troubleshooting skill level needed.
I can recommend, having done both hundreds of times in 20 years, you go with option 1. If you want to go with 2, though, there are programs like EaseUS (never used it, not recommending it; just an example). Here's a MS community thread as well that talks about how to do it.
Posted on 6/21/21 at 1:50 pm to shspanthers
EaseUS works well. I only have one machine running Windows (my Virtual Pinball machine), but used this tool to move from a SATA SSD to NVME... jsut a couple of clicky clicky's and it's done.. disconnect the old drive, and don't forget to change the BIOS to boot order so the NVME is first.
Posted on 6/21/21 at 4:31 pm to Lonnie Utah
quote:
Everything. I would want the SSD to be the new boot drive.
Why not just use the Microsoft tool to re-install windows to your new drive? You can back up your personal data (cloud, external) and reinstall any software you need.
Probably a better outcome than some hackneyed "transfer" program.
Posted on 6/21/21 at 4:50 pm to Grievous Angel
quote:
Why not just use the Microsoft tool to re-install windows to your new drive? You can back up your personal data (cloud, external) and reinstall any software you need.
I have about 300-400GB of music files on the machine, not to mention all of the programs and applications. While cleaner, the "reinstall windows route" would take forever. The last time I transferred my music files to a new HDD, it took about 8-10 hours....
Posted on 6/21/21 at 8:04 pm to Lonnie Utah
If you are going to keep the HDD drive for additional storage, just leave the music files there.
Things may have changed, but the old wisdom was you put your OS and application files on the SSD because they would launch faster, and leave your data files on the spinner because it has more space.
The only reason I could see moving everything would be if you want to format the HDD and partition it into multiple logical drives. But even then I would look for somewhere other than the SSD to store everything while you do that.
Things may have changed, but the old wisdom was you put your OS and application files on the SSD because they would launch faster, and leave your data files on the spinner because it has more space.
The only reason I could see moving everything would be if you want to format the HDD and partition it into multiple logical drives. But even then I would look for somewhere other than the SSD to store everything while you do that.
Posted on 6/21/21 at 8:09 pm to Lonnie Utah
Definitely recommend doing a SSD upgrade. Huge performance increase over HDD.
I've done three recently but am certainly not an expert. All three were done slightly differently and each had unique challenges.
Do a clean install unless you have a compelling reason not to. Sure, it takes awhile to get all your settings back the way you like them, but in a few days most things are sorted.
I migrated the OS on two of my computers because each has an particular app that I would have to pay a bunch of money to replace. After some youtubing I ended up using Macrium Reflect Free mostly because of how easily you can shrink partitions, which was one of my issues going from HDDs that were larger than the SSDs. Heard good things about EaseUS as well.
You'll probably need to begin by installing the M.2 and formatting it in Disk Manager, then fiddle with some bios setting to make sure the computer sees the M.2. From there it's up to you to decide whether to do a clean install or migrate.
Good luck.
I've done three recently but am certainly not an expert. All three were done slightly differently and each had unique challenges.
Do a clean install unless you have a compelling reason not to. Sure, it takes awhile to get all your settings back the way you like them, but in a few days most things are sorted.
I migrated the OS on two of my computers because each has an particular app that I would have to pay a bunch of money to replace. After some youtubing I ended up using Macrium Reflect Free mostly because of how easily you can shrink partitions, which was one of my issues going from HDDs that were larger than the SSDs. Heard good things about EaseUS as well.
You'll probably need to begin by installing the M.2 and formatting it in Disk Manager, then fiddle with some bios setting to make sure the computer sees the M.2. From there it's up to you to decide whether to do a clean install or migrate.
Good luck.
Posted on 6/22/21 at 6:16 am to PJinAtl
quote:
If you are going to keep the HDD drive for additional storage, just leave the music files there.
I understand where the advice is coming from, but the whole point of the upgrade is to get the music files to load into Serato faster. It wouldn't make sense for my application to leave them on the HDD.
This post was edited on 6/22/21 at 6:19 am
Posted on 6/22/21 at 6:17 am to RantardoMontalbon
quote:
I migrated the OS on two of my computers because each has an particular app that I would have to pay a bunch of money to replace. After some youtubing I ended up using Macrium Reflect Free mostly because of how easily you can shrink partitions, which was one of my issues going from HDDs that were larger than the SSDs. Heard good things about EaseUS as well.
You'll probably need to begin by installing the M.2 and formatting it in Disk Manager, then fiddle with some bios setting to make sure the computer sees the M.2. From there it's up to you to decide whether to do a clean install or migrate.
Fortunately, they new SSD and the HDD are the same size...
This post was edited on 6/22/21 at 6:18 am
Posted on 6/22/21 at 7:43 am to shspanthers
I cannot agree strongly enough with shspanthers' advice. I have loaded/reloaded OSs for over 25 years and bet I can count on one hand the number of times that an upgrade worked properly. In fact, I reloaded a laptop this past weekend for a friend who "upgraded" from Win 8 to Win 10 a few months ago. She had constant video, touchpad, and mouse driver issues that would freeze the machine. Anyhow, I strongly recommend that you load Windows fresh on the NVMe drive and transfer files. I know it is slow but not as slow as "upgrading" in place and then reloading from scratch in two months because it never runs right. Good luck with whatever you choose to do.
Posted on 6/22/21 at 8:57 am to Grillades
quote:
I cannot agree strongly enough with shspanthers' advice. I have loaded/reloaded OSs for over 25 years and bet I can count on one hand the number of times that an upgrade worked properly. In fact, I reloaded a laptop this past weekend for a friend who "upgraded" from Win 8 to Win 10 a few months ago. She had constant video, touchpad, and mouse driver issues that would freeze the machine. Anyhow, I strongly recommend that you load Windows fresh on the NVMe drive and transfer files. I know it is slow but not as slow as "upgrading" in place and then reloading from scratch in two months because it never runs right. Good luck with whatever you choose to do.
I've thought about that post alot since it was made. Frankly, it "scares" the crap outta me about what I might be getting into. But, by nature, I'm prone to fret about things. I know what I SHOULD do, but I'm also hard headed and prone to overestimate my abilities.
That being said, I think what I'm going to actually do is attempt to clone first. It if fails, or goes haywire, I'll simply reformat the NVMe and go the fresh install route. I know, I know. Some of you are saying "He's an idiot" right about now, and you aren't wrong.
But since I'm not touching the original HDD it shouldn't be hard to reset things to their current condition if I botch it otherwise. It's a "risk" I'm willing to take at this point for the sake of speed. Thoughts?
Posted on 6/22/21 at 11:38 am to Lonnie Utah
I am not going to say that it can't work. It can but my experiences have been that systems that experience significant hardware changes (old software, new hardware) have a high chance of malfunction. If you are going to try the cloning, that's the right way to do it. Keep the old drive safe and re-install it if things head south. You can always perform a clean install on the NVMe drive at a later time. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.
Page 1 of 2
Popular
Back to top
Follow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News