How do I upgrade the SSD I boot from?

August 23, 2012 6:52 PM

What's the best way to upgrade my hard drive on my desktop? I have a 40GB SSD that I boot from, and I want to upgrade that to an 80GB SSD. What's the best way to move all of my information from the old drive to the new one, and then have the computer boot from the new drive?

If I just copy everything from the old drive to the new one, and plug the new one into the motherboard, will everything still work?

posted by nickhb to computers & internet (6 answers total)

If I just copy everything from the old drive to the new one, and plug the new one into the motherboard, will everything still work?

No, it won't.

Get a copy of something like Paragon's Hard Disk Manager. It will make a faithful dupe of the original to the new drive, and make it bootable. Yes, it can handle the extra space.
posted by trinity8-director at 6:56 PM on August 23, 2012

That's good to know. Is there any free software that does the same thing? I'm kind of on a budget.
posted by nickhb at 6:58 PM on August 23, 2012

I'm guessing you're not on a Mac? Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper is the standard solution there. Here's a page of CCC alternatives for Windows. You want to clone or image the old drive on the new one, not just copy the files over.
posted by supercres at 7:18 PM on August 23, 2012

If $14.00 fits in the budget, this will make the process totally painless. If you're in the Twin Cities area, you can borrow mine.
posted by chazlarson at 10:57 PM on August 23, 2012

Thanks guys! I was going to use Clonezilla, but I'm always nervous working at a level that could seriously destroy my computer. The kit will work perfectly.
posted by nickhb at 7:55 AM on August 24, 2012

Acronis True Image for $50 does the job in a nice interface. The 30 day trial is fully functional and you could complete the entire task with it. But I would recommend True Image to be used for backup anyway.
posted by fief at 2:42 PM on August 24, 2012