Re-Cloning A Solid State Hard Drive... Format It Or What?

[player]

I have a new larger Samsung SSD drive that I am going to install, swapping it in place of my existing C drive. I bought it around Xmas and when I got it I cloned my original C drive onto it. I now want to swap the drives, but would like to make an new image or clone of my current C drive.

Should I format it or just clone over the old clone? I am using Acronus, and the drive also came with some type of Samsung SSD drive program I have installed but not used.

Thanks

 

[OldPaint]

AOMEI its a free d/l works great.

 

[mark-s]

With new drives always reformat.

mark-s

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I have a new larger Samsung SSD drive that I am going to install, swapping it in place of my existing C drive. I bought it around Xmas and when I got it I cloned my original C drive onto it. I now want to swap the drives, but would like to make an new image or clone of my current C drive.

If you want what is on your old drive to be cloned, then I would reformat the new drive and clone the old onto the new.

Make sure though that the harddrive is really the only think that you are changing. If you are changing some of your more important hardware, you may break installs, but if it's just an HD swap, you should be good.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

AOMEI its a free d/l works great.

If you are going along these lines, my first choice would be Clonezilla. But that's just me.

 

[player]

If you are going along these lines, my first choice would be Clonezilla. But that's just me.

I already own Acronis as stated in my OP. Is there a reason people are recommending other free programs over Acronis?

I thought formatting SS drives was not recommended... I realize I have to remove the old info, but just wondering about the best way.

The only thing I am changing is the SSD drive. My old one was acting weird, and it is 250 gigs, which is close to being filled. So I am going with a higher quality Samsung 500 gig SSD which will fix the lack of space and hopefully save me from a faulty drive.

The program that comes with the drive is Samsung Magician. I am going to look up what that does...

update: is seems that the Samsung Magician allows for different optimizations. Fast with less overall storage and shorter lifespan, or storage, with slower speeds but more space, without the optimizations.

http://www.samsung.com/global/busin.../SSD/global/html/whitepaper/whitepaper12.html

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I already own Acronis as stated in my OP. Is there a reason people are recommending other free programs over Acronis?

That wasn't my intent, I was aware from this post and others that we have had on this that you have Acronis. I was only responding to OldPaint, not directly towards you.

I thought formatting SS drives was not recommended... I realize I have to remove the old info, but just wondering about the best way.

Defragging isn't recommended on a SSD. But when you install an OS, even a fresh install, there is formatting going on. No way around it.

Now, writes in general are what degrade the lifespan of an SSD (their lifespan is measured in writes) and that's probably the basis from where you are coming from, but defragging is far more of an evil then formatting, not only in terms of writes about how an SSD "sees" and uses free space.

 

[player]

Thanks to all who answered.

I will proceed with a format, then Acronis clone, install disk, re-authorize some software that calls for it.

 

[OldPaint]

just to make it clear........ALL NEW HARD DRIVES, no matter if they are SSD or spin up disk...........
MUST BE FORMATTED......before anything can be added to it.
FORMATTING, puts the basic info on the hard drive so the computer bios can find it..........

 

[player]

just to make it clear........ALL NEW HARD DRIVES, no matter if they are SSD or spin up disk...........
MUST BE FORMATTED......before anything can be added to it.
FORMATTING, puts the basic info on the hard drive so the computer bios can find it..........

Thanks OldPaint. To make my situation clear, as I stated in my first post the drive in question has been formatted and a clone of the old C drive copied to it. I need to re-clone the old C drive again to get a current copy of the old C drive before I replace it.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

just to make it clear........ALL NEW HARD DRIVES, no matter if they are SSD or spin up disk...........
MUST BE FORMATTED......before anything can be added to it.
FORMATTING, puts the basic info on the hard drive so the computer bios can find it..........

Technically speaking, because the new drive is having a clone put on it, that need isn't there. It is already within the "cloned" info. The BIOs only needs to recognize a bootable media, after you've booted into the original drive, most backup programs will read the hard drive. Make the clone and the new drive because a bootable media with all the drivers/firmware that the computer needs.

I suggest formatting, because I don't like extra stray info that can throw a wrench into the plans of a quick swap, that might still be there if a clean wipe isn't done.


Make sure you do not reboot with both drives attached. That may seem like a simple thing not to do, but it can happen by accident, people forget, even ones that know better.

 

[OldPaint]

you can boot a computer that is SATA connected with 2 SSD drives on it.......i do it all the time. my main desktop is a SATA m/b with 6-7 connections on it. as i have it set up i have a SATA SSD as my drive C: i also have an IDE cable connected to my old spin up disc drive as drive D:
i put a a new SSD in the wifes computer, BUT 1ST formatted it on my computer. shut off computer, connected her SSD to my m/b. fired it up and it loaded as normal to my SSD C: drive. then i went to disk managment, formatted the new SSD, it came up as drive F: in the scan of drives. shut off computer, removed her SSD and took it to her machine and connected it to SATA port(had to disconnect the DVD-CDR her puter only has 2 SATA ports)booted it up i loaded as normal to her C: drive and then i had AOMEI already loaded on her old h/d. it found the new formatted SSD......and cloned original C: drive to new SSD. when it finished, i closed the AOMEI shut it down, put the new SSD in the same cable the old C: drive, hooked the DVD-CDR back up, hit the power and it booted to the SSD with al the info from her old 160 gig spin up disc.
just changing the drive, made it run like a different machine. 2-3 times faster............

 

[WildWestDesigns]

you can boot a computer that is SATA connected with 2 SSD drives on it.......i do it all the time. my main desktop is a SATA m/b with 6-7 connections on it. as i have it set up i have a SATA SSD as my drive C: i also have an IDE cable connected to my old spin up disc drive as drive D:

Not when both are primary with bootable media in it and you don't have it setup for at the vary least in this situation as dual booting. That's the complication in this situation.

You would have to setup Grub (or whatever your bootloader is) to to where you would choose which OS to boot into (aka dual booting (or more if you have more then 2 OSs, but that can get complicated with the bootloader).

Attached is what Grub looks like on one of my Desktops. Running Fedora and Debian on it.

Based on what you said, one is a slave and one is primary. The situation that I'm talking about, you have 2 primaries. That's when it isn't good unless you have it configured for a multi boot situation.

Most of my rigs have multiple SSDs connected (at least my desktop rigs). Some run the main Linux OS, the others are to run VMs of Windows, so having multiple SSDs in one rig in of itself isn't the issue, it's how everything is configured and what all they do is where you can get into a bag of worms.

 

[player]

Now that I think about it, I don't think I did format it originally. I think i used Acronis to run the clone.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Now that I think about it, I don't think I did format it originally. I think i used Acronis to run the clone.

No, when you do a clone, you are formatting the drive. You are formatting it to be a copy of the original drive.

The only reason why I suggested formatting the drive in this instance is because you have old info on the "new" drive. I prefer to wipe the slate before I add info to it in a situation like this.

Is it necessary? Maybe, maybe not. That's just how I do things.


This does assume that it's a true clone and not just backup of data. There is a difference in those applications.

If you have a source drive that has 3 partitions formatted, your destination clone drive will also have 3 partitions formatted.

 

[OldPaint]

ok.........tell me how you set an SSD to be a slave??? there are no jumpers on a SSD DRIVE. WHAT HAPPENS when you have 2 SSD's on a sata connection m/b is the board is smart enough to know which is the C: drive to boot from. when the 2nd one was not even formatted yet. now this was not possible with IDE hard drives cause they would be on the same cable, same IDE PIN connection on the mother board. SATA will detect and place any additional drives added and will only boot to C: unless instructed manually thru disk management. now the DUAL BOOT THING......... is a different ball game. not what i was doing. i have 5-6 SATA PORTS.. on this m/b i can plug a hard drive into each one and set up which i choose to call C: as far as the m/b is concerened it will alway be the 1st port used as main hard drive.....all other SATA port connection will be assigned a letter like G:, H:, K: L: and so on.

 

[Techman]

Not when both are primary with bootable media in it and you don't have it setup for at the vary least in this situation as dual booting

Not sure what you are referring to..

The motherboard will boot to whatever drive is assigned to be the boot drive in BIOS.

Take two drives, install and set them up both as c drives.

Install them both into the computer... go into BIO and assign one or the other as primary BOOT drive. After one is assigned as C BOT the others will be assigned their own letter
Being installed as a primary boot disk has no affect on it in anyway.
BIOS decides what to assign as boot drive.

Anytime one wished he can go into bios and assign any drive one wants to boot. One day it can be a drive with win 10 another it can be changed to win7 drive.


As for formatting a drive when cloning? Not needed. The clone utility overwrites every thing and reassigned the boot data table anyway.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Not sure what you are referring to..

Windows 7 has a known issue of having problems when cloning to a bigger harddrive then the original (which is what the OP is doing). You might encounter the Windows not genuine message message when you boot with both of them connected.

It has to do with how it handles disc lettering after the cloning process. Boot with both of them connected, even once and have fun. It's not quite as easy to just simple change the letter mapping either. It's already been recognized as a Windows not genuine at that point. I've seen it where the original C: is listed as something else, as a G: even an S:. At that point, both drives are required to remain to run the system unless fixed.

Solutions that I have found were to handle things within the registry in Safe Mode, not within Disk Management (which would have been my first inclination).

 

[Andy D]

I just went through something similar (not a cloning though) with my Samsung SSD, I'm not a computer expert, so take what I say with a grain of salt,
But I would suggest formating and cloning via Samsung's proprietary program. Also, I do remember that I had an issue that the new harddrive was "frozen"
or "locked-up" after formatting it, and I had to unplug the hard drive's power and data, replug them in and type a DOS command prompt... other than that, it worked great.