Windows 10: Clone only Used Space on 2TB HDD to 500 GB SSD

I've installed a new 500 GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO in my system. I want to clone only the "used" portion of my 2TB HDD (about 370 GB) to the SSD for faster performance when I boot, run programs, etc.

I'm a bit of a noob, and when I go into "Disk Management" one option is to shrink the largest volume on my HDD. I'm thinking that if I shrink it down to about 370 GB from the current 1.8 TB maybe then I can go ahead and clone using, say, Macrium Reflect. Once the cloning is done, I want to boot from the SSD, back it up, and then wipe the HDD and use it as a mass storage disk.

FYI, the HDD is encrypted by Bitlocker.

Is it as simple as that? What issues do I need to watch out for?

Thanks much!

:)

 

Confused about hard drives: HDD and SSD

So, if I want at least a 500 GB drive, an SSD would be either not available at any price or prohibitively expensive--at least for now. It struck me that while numerous computers were boasting large HDDs, the few offering SSDs were shockingly small. I appreciate
understanding why.

Thanks.

Exactly. 500GB SSDs currently sell for around $200, 1TB models are available but run to $500 or so and a 2TB SSD will cost you over $1,000. (Prices in Australia)

A lot of people get both, a 256 GB SSD for the C: drive and a 2TB HDD or bigger for a D: drive. Then you get good performance from Windows plus lot's of space for your data.

 

Clone a 1 Tb drive to a 512 Mb SSC

Hi Vaughn,

You can
clone larger HDD to small SSD with a professional disk cloning software as long as the used space is smaller than the SSD. You will not worry it will clone the unused space unless you use sector by sector clone mode.

I suggest you to clone your HDD to SSD with AOMEI Backupper, if the used space is larger than the SSD, you can clone only the OS to SSD and keep the HDD as data storage. This software is very easy to operate.

 

Hello baldredhead Welcome to the Ten Forums!

Cloning is generally seen with drives the same size or larger especially when going to shrink the OS primary cloned down a bit afterwards. You wouldn't be able to fit a 1.831tb size partition on the 500gb drive without a great deal of compression involved which would then slow the access time down. That would work in reverse of what you looking for to boost performance.

Your absolute best option would be to see an entirely new clean install of 10 go onto the smaller SSD drive and subsequently take advantage of the larger drive for storage and backup purposes once things are all set to go on the SSD. I run a piar of 2tb drives here for storage and backup and having just replaced a pair of 1tb drives find these two new drives are filling up fast too! *Eek

The clean install approach however is still your best option for taking advantage of not only the fresh Windows 10 install but what you are actually wanting to see the performance gain of running 10 on an SSD type drive. Windows 10 - Clean Install - Windows 10 Forums[2]=Installation%20and%20Setup

If you are still running the upgrade over the previous version install of 10 but didn't download and save to ISO disk image form or burn a dvd if not see a USB Installation Key made up with the Media Creation Tool you can simply keep going back to download 10 to burn to dvd then to see it go on a flash and still save the "Windows.iso" to a folder to later needs. Windows 10 ISO Download - Windows 10 Forums[2]=Installation%20and%20Setup

Unfortunately 10 lacks the previously seen Windows Easy Transfer tool which made transferring files and settings onto a clean of Windows from an existing working install possible. But copy and paste manually of both program folders and user account sub folders for certain things can be done on the fresh install 10 before allowing the program installers to merge the new with the existing folders during the installation to pick up a good deal of where you left off on the 2tb drive.

If you run Steam games and wonder where all that 370gb of used drive space went following the 14-17gb of space a fresh install of 10 takes up look there! On the 7 side of the dual boot here that weighs in at 114gb while down a little to 110gb on the 10 side of the equation.

But as far as cloning or even making a full system image backup to restore onto the new drive you would need a second 2tb size drive to see any recommended working results. The encryption process may or may not end up being another problem depending on what program was used to clone or image a new drive with.

And once you have the clean install running on the SSD which is the advisement here you might want to consider seeing a " Recovery Drive " made up with an 8gb or so usb flash drive since 10 and what to come will no longer see optical media type recovery images and tools. The Recovery Drive runs over 4gb in size. IF you ever have a time when not able to get 10 running and are not able to bring up the F8 boot options menu at post time/startup you would simply boot from the Recovery Drive where all of the repair options are seen.

 

OK, so it seems I need to do a clean install of Win 10. It's not what I had in mind, but I'm not inclined to buy a 2TB SSD drive. Anyway, I think I can do that. Thanks for the advice!

I did make a recovery drive for Win10 a month or so ago, so hopefully that can save me from myself if things go haywire. And I have all the data backed up. But I guess I need to make an ISO disk image from MS's Media Creation Tool? Is that not the same thing as the recovery drive?

Even though I have Steam installed I'm not much of a gamer, so that part doesn't matter to me. My main occupier of space is music (about 100 GB).

Also, when I ran the "Samsung Magician" program it told me that my new SSD was connected to a 3Gb/sec SATA II thing. But I thought this rig was SATA III. Maybe I just put that data cable in the wrong port?

Thanks for your help!

 

I would go for the shrink and clone, although I use MINI TOOL PARTITION MANAGER myself. Some motherboards have Sata 2 and 3 connections, if you don't have the motherboard manual to hand to check, Googling the MB will get the info.

 

If you try shrinking a 1.831tb size primary down to 465gb approximately you will need a clean install to clean up a mess! The clone will be utterly useless! Generally when making up a full system image back up you can that type of image restored to the same size or larger drive without problems. I restored a 7 Pro onto a 1tb drive added in after 10 was up and running on the original 7 drive and then shrank that only about 80gb to allow for the second backup partition.

A direct clone on the other hand depends larger on the program's ability as well as just how complex or simplified you can make things ahead of time. One article that goes into migrating Windows from a 1tb not a 2tb size drive to a 120gb SSD is seen at PC World. Move from a hard drive to an SSD | PCWorld

The article there starts off by comparing how to move furniture from a large home into a small apartment. That goes into explaining how to tweak things in order to condense things where possible. With roughly 70% of the total drive space used up the performance will start off with any drives as response times and file access times take longer. Now if the 370gb of OS and files were on a 500gb part on the 2tb drive the restoration of a full system image backup of that partition and restoration to the new SSD would run into a better end result since the shrinkage is small in comparison. But that will still only leave you with about 95gb of free drive space out of the approximate 465gb seen with a 500gb drive.

For your system there getting 10 on the SSD and seeing that it going strong will allow you to migrate over what you can from the first drive. Here in preparation for 10 I cloned the 7 host/boot drive over to the second OS that was waiting for a second OS since both are identical being same brand as well as same model and size. The clone ran just as well as the host source drive did. Unfortunately due to other complications I first assumed the clone was at fault and nuked the drive to see a clean 7 with SP1 install take place on a brand new primary which ended up seeing a buggy upgrade. That was to followed a week later with the clean install I'm booted in now! *Biggrin

I think you would still want a clean install anyways so that the fresh 10 install will bond better to the hardware in that sense rather then finding a load of problems if the clone falters either immediately or later. That works to your advantage as well since while you can take your time getting things on and running good on the SSD you still have everything working on the first drive which will need to be unplugged during the 10 install of course.

Now what the Media Creation tool offers is the on the spot upgrade option or create media screen you first run into following the choice of language and edition which will be critical as far as the upgrade path is concerned. That would be Home or Home Premium to 10 Home, Pro or Ultimate to 10 Pro. when skipping the immediate upgrade option since you are after the media the next option is to see a 4gb flash drive turned into the installation media by way of bootable flash drive. The last two when opting for the save download will be to burn the dvd or save the "Windows.iso" file to a folder on the drive. You can simply change the save as file name to Windows 10 Home or Pro.iso for easy identification purposes.

Now besides Home, Home N, Pro, and Pro N there are two other options for seeing both the 32bit and 64bit flavors in the "both" option for either Home or Pro as well as one other Home SingleLanguage option. The both gives you the choice between running the 32bit or 64bit flavor of the edition you will be running. These are full install type ISO disk image downloads you can see turned into the live media or saved to the drive. And you can keep going back if you have other systems to upgrade or want to save the iso to the drive aftter first seeing the media made up.

 

I've changed my mind about the shrink idea, it's too risky, a clean W10 install on the ssd is the safest way.

 

Your choice, but cloning in Macrium Reflect includes the ability to shrink that large partition (as long as the data contained leaves enough slack) down on the fly so that all partitions can fit on the destination disk.

See Steps 4 & 5 here: http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/dis...Cloning+a+disk

 

The problem there is that that is with the "Free" version while the Professional options for something like this are only seen with the paid for plus or pro versions. The compression ratio is a bit steep when you review the steps for seeing the 1tb half the size drive go to the 120gb which is even smaller 2 to 1 for the 2tb to 1tb while the 500gb to 120gb is even steeper when you match the project for each. 1tb to 120gb and 2tb to 500gb or one quarter compared to the lesst then 1/8th explained in the article but with recommendations included for how to go about thing. Risky Business!

For any new version I simply plan to be seeing multiple clean installs over time and nothing compares to seeing working result! Due to moving into a smaller sized OS drive the consideration of the new limits on how much can be put on have to be considered as well as the stability and performance generally seen with any clean install to begin with. Turning that 2tb drive into a primary storage and backup device will be the better move since that will allow you to store complete system images of the new SSD host OS drive for safe keeping along with all of your files.

 

You can easily transfer 370GB to a 500GB SSD. It is a fairly common practice and less time consuming than a clean install. Here is a tutorial for your consideration... Solved How to Migrate OS to new Hard disk.

 

Thanks for all your responses. Very informative. In the end I did a clean install using the Media Creation Tool. Spent a good portion of last night doing it, and It was a PITA, but for the most part I've got things the way I want them.

One issue left unresolved is how to encrypt my SSD. I can do the software encryption with Bitlocker, but I've read that causes a performance hit. I don't want that, especially since I found out that my motherboard has only SATA II sockets.

This SSD has hardware encryption, but cruising around the Internet it's hard to find good information about how to enable that. Also, I did disable Secure Boot before I did the install. Should I re-enable it?

Thanks again for all the help!

 

Just as a follow-through since OP is happy already -

I wouldn't know from Professional or Plus versions (I think those are v5 names, not sure) - My comments are based on experience with the V6 (current) free and paid Home versions and, more specifically, the Macrium Knowledge Base I linked to.

There is no compression going on there, only relocation of data as necessary within the bounds of a maximum size allowed (constrained by target disk size) and a minimum size allowed (constrained by the amount of data already in the source partition).

An example: If you have an oversized 4th partition needing resized you might have a 5th and 6th partition remaining to fit on the disk and, in that case, you would resize that 4th partition on the fly to an amount below maximum in an amount equal to or less than the size of the 5th and 6th partitions combined. Did this on the phone with another forum member on the phone recently (while restoring an image, not cloning, but it works the same).

 

For the Secure Boot that will depend a great deal on the board you have there and whether you have UEFI or not. The option would be found under security if present in the bios setup. With it enabled again you would have to go back in there to disable it all over again if you should need to boot from either the 10 media or Recovery Drive however.

As for encryping SSDs there are a number of programs to look over for that purpose like Secure Device or TrueCrypt as two options there besides the BitLocker addon for 10. You might want to read up on that a little before deciding which option to go with. The first one I can point you to instructs on how to see the BitLocker tool enabled in 10. How To Enable BitLocker Drive Encryption In Windows 10?

For the amount of empty drive space you will end up with one write pass will cover the small amount you will have remaining if you do end up transferring the 370gb total amount less about 17gb for the previous 10 install then adding device drivers, updates, etc. that you won't packing up to move over. Once you do have everything the way you want it would be a good idea to make a full system image of the entire drive itself in case you should run into some other problem later. You have plenty of drive space for that on the larger drive. *Smile

If you were following what I was posting you would have also read the article pointed to where the blog writer is the one making the "general suggestion" to look at the plus, pro, premium, or whatever name a particular software uses for the deluxe version rather then the typically less featured home versions marketed. I knew right where the blogger was going with that.

As for compression I was simply using that as an example since if you were to take one of the 2tb drives here and try the same you would find things a bit different like 1100gb to fit on a 500gb drive without any compression of data? That's not going to happen.

For the 370gb there that comes upto about 70-75% of the total 465gb average available drive space seen with a 500gb model drive the issue concerning the loss of performance comes up as it would for any other drive with exceptions for the technologies involved. It's how NAND type Flash memory storage works as a rule of thumb. And one reason perhaps besides the higher prices I still haven't been that concerned about not having any! The 1tb models can pay for a new custom build! Why Solid-State Drives Slow Down As You Fill Them Up

 

You're right, Night Hawk, that I hadn't followed the link back to the PC World article. Now that I have, I was getting the point from the writer more that you shouldn't necessarily trust SSD ("free") manufacturer software to do the best job for migration - and this is often discussed by users as being the case for the Samsung Migration software. My intent was more to cover that Macrium Reflect, at the free and Home version level, is perfectly capable of doing necessary shrinkage as part of the cloning or image/restore process.

I was triggered by the word compression and apologize for not parsing that in the context of your prior post - I actually thought you meant data compression as Windows provides rather than the compression of a partition going from 20% full to 80% as in the case of OP.

Understood - I wouldn't let an SSD with my OS stand at 80% full due to user data content either and would do my best to migrate data to another drive and trim excess to at least 50% or less. The data migration part COULD follow SSD receiving cloning and installation but certainly I'd prefer the SSD only see a virgin OS, as you discussed, and then only have data added as might be necessary.

Fortunately (or not) for me, the mass of my user data is stored in an XP desktop and external drives complex for the time being and my ONE experience with installing an SSD (so far) has been changing out the 1TB spinner in my new Dell laptop to the same SSD posted about by the OP. So, I was trying more to address specific context of OP where they started the thread and not so much generalize.

You covered the general case well and that's quite useful in helping others strategize this type of move.