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Fastest/Easiest HDD to HDD transfer?
nite_monkey:
So I have a smallish ssd as my boot drive, so I use a larger HDD to install all my apps to. Well that drive is about to crap its pants (about to die), so I have a new drive that should be arriving today. I was going to put two partitions on said new drive, and wanted to move all of my installed apps to one of the new partitions. I then was going to remove the old drive, and change the drive letter of the new partition to that of the old drive that is about to die. So my question is, what would be the easiest method to achieve this, preferably without having to uninstall all the apps from the old drive, and reinstall them on the new drive? The old drive is a 2TB drive and the new drive is a 6TB (being split into two 3TB partitions) if that info is needed.
Shades:
Do you have a hard disk enclosure in which the new drive fits?
If yes, you could use software like HDClone to transfer content from one drive to the other. The pay version can pump data from one drive to the other quite a lot faster than a standard copy action in Windows explorer can accomplish. Still, with a hard disk enclosure the transfer speed will be limited to the max speed of the (USB) ports on your computer. But Windows Explorer is in essence enough to do the transfer. There are also tools like Macrium Reflect and others that have free/licensed versions of their software available. All of these will make the transfer easier.
If not, do you have a laptop or desktop computer?
In case of a laptop: purchase a hard disk enclosure (USB) as most laptops only support one built-in drive. You should be able to get one for 20 or 25 USD,
In case of a desktop: open your computer case and find a free slot (which can be SATA or m2 (nVMe)) and connect the drive. You can then partition/format the drive to your liking and use Windows Explorer or HDClone or other tools to do the transfer. Now you are limited to the transfer speeds the hard disk controller in your system can manage. And these are much higher than can be accomplished by an enclosure. If you have the budget, go this route and reduce the transfer time from hours till mere minutes. Yes, HDClone can really pump data from one drive to the other that fast.
On a side note:
How sure are you that the hard disk controller on your motherboard is capable of supporting partitions >2TByte? Because that happened to me with a now 6 year old motherboard (Asus and the Pro version of that model). Anything above 2TByte is not immediately recognized. I needed to get specific software from the hard disk vendor, install that and the remainder of my 3TByte drive became available. Still, it wasn't possible to have a partition bigger than 2TByte.
Yet I have older boards (all Asus with either Intel or AMD) which do not have this limitation. Switching to the latest BIOS, taken from the support section on Asus website for this problematic board, did not solve the problem.
It is unlikely you will encounter the same problem as I did, but I thought I mention it regardless.
superboyac:
So I have a smallish ssd as my boot drive, so I use a larger HDD to install all my apps to. Well that drive is about to crap its pants (about to die), so I have a new drive that should be arriving today. I was going to put two partitions on said new drive, and wanted to move all of my installed apps to one of the new partitions. I then was going to remove the old drive, and change the drive letter of the new partition to that of the old drive that is about to die. So my question is, what would be the easiest method to achieve this, preferably without having to uninstall all the apps from the old drive, and reinstall them on the new drive? The old drive is a 2TB drive and the new drive is a 6TB (being split into two 3TB partitions) if that info is needed.
-nite_monkey (June 24, 2020, 07:51 AM)
--- End quote ---
I do this all the time.
There is no foolproof way to just transfer the contents and have it work flawlessly. But you can get close, or good enough where you wouldn't even notice for a while. I'd copy all the files over exactly as they are. I wouldn't do all that partition stuff. I'd copy from one disk to the other, swap them, and continue as if nothing happened. After I saw that was working, then I'd consider some additional modifications to partitions etc.
But what I'd really do is install the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch. Not that bad, but will take some time.
Windows also has their own WIndows Easy Transfer or something. Should be ok. I've used it, it was ok, i can't remember any issues.
Bare minimum, you want to save all your custom data somewhere first before you try all this. I usually save program files, programdata, all that user local roaming stuff, documents....frankly i'll just save the entire drive before something like this.
nite_monkey:
Do you have a hard disk enclosure in which the new drive fits?
If yes, you could use software like HDClone to transfer content from one drive to the other. The pay version can pump data from one drive to the other quite a lot faster than a standard copy action in Windows explorer can accomplish. Still, with a hard disk enclosure the transfer speed will be limited to the max speed of the (USB) ports on your computer. But Windows Explorer is in essence enough to do the transfer. There are also tools like Macrium Reflect and others that have free/licensed versions of their software available. All of these will make the transfer easier.
If not, do you have a laptop or desktop computer?
In case of a laptop: purchase a hard disk enclosure (USB) as most laptops only support one built-in drive. You should be able to get one for 20 or 25 USD,
In case of a desktop: open your computer case and find a free slot (which can be SATA or m2 (nVMe)) and connect the drive. You can then partition/format the drive to your liking and use Windows Explorer or HDClone or other tools to do the transfer. Now you are limited to the transfer speeds the hard disk controller in your system can manage. And these are much higher than can be accomplished by an enclosure. If you have the budget, go this route and reduce the transfer time from hours till mere minutes. Yes, HDClone can really pump data from one drive to the other that fast.
On a side note:
How sure are you that the hard disk controller on your motherboard is capable of supporting partitions >2TByte? Because that happened to me with a now 6 year old motherboard (Asus and the Pro version of that model). Anything above 2TByte is not immediately recognized. I needed to get specific software from the hard disk vendor, install that and the remainder of my 3TByte drive became available. Still, it wasn't possible to have a partition bigger than 2TByte.
Yet I have older boards (all Asus with either Intel or AMD) which do not have this limitation. Switching to the latest BIOS, taken from the support section on Asus website for this problematic board, did not solve the problem.
It is unlikely you will encounter the same problem as I did, but I thought I mention it regardless.
-Shades (June 24, 2020, 12:25 PM)
--- End quote ---
I've currently got a 3TB drive in my computer also, which windows recognizes the full capacity. I've run out of free Sata ports, so my plan was to temporarily use the cables from my internal bluray drive, and then play musical drives and swap out the old drive with the new one once I was done transferring everything. I might have to take a look at HDClone.
So I have a smallish ssd as my boot drive, so I use a larger HDD to install all my apps to. Well that drive is about to crap its pants (about to die), so I have a new drive that should be arriving today. I was going to put two partitions on said new drive, and wanted to move all of my installed apps to one of the new partitions. I then was going to remove the old drive, and change the drive letter of the new partition to that of the old drive that is about to die. So my question is, what would be the easiest method to achieve this, preferably without having to uninstall all the apps from the old drive, and reinstall them on the new drive? The old drive is a 2TB drive and the new drive is a 6TB (being split into two 3TB partitions) if that info is needed.
-nite_monkey (June 24, 2020, 07:51 AM)
--- End quote ---
I do this all the time.
There is no foolproof way to just transfer the contents and have it work flawlessly. But you can get close, or good enough where you wouldn't even notice for a while. I'd copy all the files over exactly as they are. I wouldn't do all that partition stuff. I'd copy from one disk to the other, swap them, and continue as if nothing happened. After I saw that was working, then I'd consider some additional modifications to partitions etc.
But what I'd really do is install the hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch. Not that bad, but will take some time.
Windows also has their own WIndows Easy Transfer or something. Should be ok. I've used it, it was ok, i can't remember any issues.
Bare minimum, you want to save all your custom data somewhere first before you try all this. I usually save program files, programdata, all that user local roaming stuff, documents....frankly i'll just save the entire drive before something like this.
-superboyac (June 24, 2020, 12:37 PM)
--- End quote ---
I was planning on splitting the new drive in two, because I was going to use the second partition as a new steam library location, because my current game drive is running out of space, and I don't have enough sata ports for two more drives, and can't afford a giant drive.
Deozaan:
I [...] can't afford a giant drive.
-nite_monkey (June 24, 2020, 12:50 PM)
--- End quote ---
* Deozaan eyes the 6TB drive suspiciously.
Kids these days... :P
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