is there any way to clone an ssd without erasing the target drive?
Posted by BottledIceJuice@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 3 comments
hey there, so i've got three ssds: a 500gb samsung 970 plus (in slot 1 of my motherboard) a 2tb 990 pro (in slot 2 of my mb with 1.3tb free) and a new 2tb 980 pro with a heatsink. the 970 is almost completely full and it houses my windows os as well as my downloads and other junk, and my 990 really is just for steam games, roms, and other stuff i couldn't fit on my 970. what i'm wanting to do is transfer everything from my 970 to my 990, so my whole pc is on that one ssd, then move the 990 to slot one, then install the 980 in slot 2. this way, both of my ssds get heatsinks (on my mb, slot one has a heatsink, slot 2 doesn't) once that's done, i'll transfer stuff around to have my have my 990 as my boot+downloads, and 980 for games. this way seems best for performance; the faster ssd with my os and creative software on it is in the faster slot, and the one for games is in the not as fast slot.
so i was working on that using the samsung magician, but i can't seem to find a way to clone my 970 without erasing everything on my 990. i obviously really don't wanna do that, so i was wondering if anyone knew a way to clone an ssd without erasing whatever is on the target drive. am i boned? do i just need to cut my losses and use the 980 as my boot drive? thanks in advance :))
kermityfrog2@reddit
There’s a difference between a boot drive and a data drive. You want to turn a data drive with stuff on it to a boot drive. If you don’t want to partition the target drive, you’re going to have to back it up, erase it by turning it into a boot drive and copying your OS or new install to it, and then copying your data back.
TheRandomizer95@reddit
If I understand you correctly, you want to essentially move the 500gb of data on the 2TB drive?
What I would do:
Backup everything important (you only really require to backup the 990 I guess)
Grab a USB drive, flash some linux distro (preferably something which has gparted)
Boot into the USB
Using gparted create a partition of 500GB free space in front memory of the drive. Only in the front, otherwise you might have issues with pointing windows to boot into a correct partition, atleast that is my understanding, I may be wrong.
(This step is the reason why booting into USB is required since windows does not natively support moving memory blocks)
(Also warning this step might cause data loss)
Just copy everything from your 500 GB drive to this new partition.
Replace your drives
Pray
If windows doesn't boot, take the L, insert your 500GB drive again restore the 990 from the backup
jamvanderloeff@reddit
If it didn't replace what was on the target then it by definition wouldn't be cloning.
Is there anything you care about at all on the 980 at the moment?
You could do clone everything that's currently on the 990 to the 980, then clone the 970 to the 990 and expand the partition to use all the space, then copy over the files you want.