Disk to Disk Copy Different Sized Disks

debitcardmayhem

tronator wrote: »

Don't do that. It's very likely that not all data is stored in the first TB of the disk. Your docking station will copy the raw data from one disk to the other and will just stop after 1TB.

You could of course shrink the size of the volume first :cool:
Using disk management or a partiton manager ...

debitcardmayhem

I would make sure you have good backup first if the disk is making "sunny" noises

cloud_dog

Alternatively, I stop worrying about it :rotfl:

Ensure I back it up regularly and then if it goes deal with the issue then, i.e. purchase a new laptop.

cloud_dog

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

You could of course shrink the size of the volume first :cool:
Using disk management or a partiton manager ...

Ok, thanks for that good idea, hadn't considered this option. I'll look in to options for doing this.

Frozen_up_north

Two issues with the assumptions listed in various posts:

1. Computers with hard drives invariably came with a ridiculously over sized drive. In practice you probably only need a 128 or 256GB SSD (many laptops come with a 256GB SSD as standard). Check what is actually used on that huge HDD, off load pictures, videos, downloads, etc. A Crucial MX500 256GB SSD is less than £46 delivered and has a 5 year warranty.

2. If you buy a Crucial SSD it comes with a free copy of Acronis to quickly clone the drive (assuming you don’t feel comfortable doing a fresh install) You will also need a USB drive caddy/cable. The whole process, including swapping the drive out, takes less than an hour, or as little as 30 mins if you use a USB 3 port.

cloud_dog

Thanks for your comments, I'll have a look at the size and what dross is on there.

A.Penny.Saved

Do not use the drive caddy you have to duplicate the disk! Only use that if the new drive is larger than the original disk. They claim to copy to same size but that is not 100% guaranteed. You would be better off to use software to do it IMO, even if you use the USB caddy to hold the drives while doing it.

Frozen_up_north

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

Do not use the drive caddy you have to duplicate the disk! Only use that if the new drive is larger than the original disk. They claim to copy to same size but that is not 100% guaranteed. You would be better off to use software to do it IMO, even if you use the USB caddy to hold the drives while doing it.

Confusing and pointless reply.

We are not talking about sector by sector drive duplication. In this century “one off” drive swaps (which is what the OP asked about) are done with cloning software and in the case of a typical laptop, a USB caddy. It is the same software used to backup and restore drives, in addition it allows you to replace a large HDD with a smaller one (preferably an SSD drive) provided you haven’t used more space on the large drive than will fit on the smaller one.

As stated earlier, the “better” solution is a fresh install on the new drive, if nothing else it avoids copying all the old clutter. But the quick and easy method is to clone the old drive to a new one.

Crucial have step by step instructions on their site explaining the process...

mgfvvc

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

2. If you buy a Crucial SSD it comes with a free copy of Acronis to quickly clone the drive (assuming you don’t feel comfortable doing a fresh install) You will also need a USB drive caddy/cable. The whole process, including swapping the drive out, takes less than an hour, or as little as 30 mins if you use a USB 3 port.

The time taken is dependent, at least in part on the amount of data you are copying. In my experience it can take several hours.


My experiences of Acronis have been mixed. It worked perfectly well on the first hard drive I cloned to SSD. I have also had Acronis fail mysteriously after several hours of copying. I would just download Macrium Reflect and not bother with Acronis.

Frozen_up_north

On USB 3, a full Windows 10 home installation, with a handful of typical home/office programs (Libre Office, Firefox, etc), the transfer using Acronis takes around 12 to 15 mins or perhaps 30 if there are a lot of files, nowhere near “hours”.