Swapping laptop HDD for SSD - how to transfer data + Windows 7 installation?

FrankGrimes

I got a HP TM2 tablet laptop while in the US recently and it's a lovely piece of kit (i5 Core CPU, 8GB RAM, excellent touch screen), but I want to increase the battery life and make it quieter, so I was thinking of investing in an SSD as this is now my main PC.

This 160GB Intel SSD looks like it would be perfect: I can make do with 160GB as I stream media from my server when at home and have a 750GB external drive I can store media on for travels etc..

Would it be a worthwhile upgrade and, if so, how should I go about it? I think on the hardware side it's just a straight swap for the current HDD as both will be 2.5", but I'm more concerned with the software side. I'm very short on spare time so won't be able to get to it for a while if there's a lot of hassle (e.g. Windows re-install) involved. I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate. Is there any way to just take an image of the current harddrive onto an external harddrive, swap out the HDD for the SSD and then apply the image to the new SSD? Or is a reinstall absolutely required?

Stokolan

I'm not too sure how the os will handle a different Hardrive swap. But using a program like norton Ghost is probably the easiest way?

djrlittleton

http://www.todo-backup.com/


great little program and its free

FrankGrimes

Thanks for both of those tips - I'll look into Todo and make sure it does the job and will go for Ghost if needed.

Are there any particular brands of SSD to go for and others to avoid? I seem to recall a few years back there being differences in how the controllers for different makes worked but amn't sure where things are at now.

Seems HWVS aren't much cheaper than Amazon for SSDs here, which is a bit surprising but then I guess the price of SSDs in general is pretty high.

game4it70

Intel SSD's come with software that clones and transfers your old drive onto the new ssd which is very handy.
As for the Intel drives themselves,there decent enough but i think there are better out there with faster write times.

Saadyst

You will need to take care that the alignment is updated and set correctly if you're doing this (w7 does this automagically on install since it detects the SSD at that point - as well as configure things like superfetch and defragmenting so you don't kill your SSD).

Personally, I just reinstalled.

FrankGrimes

Thanks for that folks.

Saadyst - does that mean Windows 7 will do the necessary things if the SSD is present during installation, but it may not do those things if I just swap out the drive on the current installation?

I'll look into finding a guide for what to do about superfetch and defrag for an SSD, but what's the alignment you mention and can I set it myself or do I have to get Windows to automatically do it?

I've a load of stuff installed on the HDD so if it involves having to reinstall everything, I probably won't bother as I can't afford the time with work and studies.

Saadyst

It definitely won't do it by itself if you are only swapping the drive.

Alignment is basically done for SSDs and affects the speeds of the drive afaik. I *think* there is a command for it, but it doesn't always work - sorry I haven't looked much into it, that's the gist of what I do know.

There are loads of people out there in the same position tho that have asked the same question - someone probably has a full proof guide by now