Swapping out hard drive for SSD

Question

I purchased a new SSD hard drive (Samsung 860 Evo) and will be installing it in the next day or two. I have watched some videos on this and it looks very easy. I have replaced older style hard drives before, but not with an SSD. The ones I have replaced were not working correctly, whereas this install is replacing just for speed.

My only concern is how to get the new SSD hard drive to be the main one that runs windows and the computer operates on. I also want to be sure all of my data transfers over successfully.

Currently, I have two hard drives installed. The main one and then the secondary that is used for extra storage. Should I take out my storage hard drive and put the SSD there and then configure the computer to use the SSD hard drive as the main one? If so, how? If not, what should I do?

Any tips?

Edit: I am not just looking to find the software to do this, but the entire process. How would I clone this when I have two hard drive slots and they are both currently filled. When I do complete the clone, would I need to change the hard drive boot order?

Also, will I have any issues with Windows 10 using the new SSD hard drive to boot?

Answer 1

There is nothing special when replacing an HDD by an SSD. It is the same process as replacing an HDD by another HDD.

The crucial point is that you use a reliable software and a robust process for cloning. Although it is possible to clone the boot HDD from within the running O/S, and although I have done this many times without any issues, I nowadays usually boot from a Linux CD or USB stick and clone the drive in question using dd or similar tools.

Afterwards, just unplug your HDD, plug in your SSD, and the OS will boot (unless your BIOS hasn't recognized the replacement, in which case you have to re-tell the BIOS from which drive it should boot).

It is always a good idea to unplug all drives which are not immediately involved in the cloning process, even if you have enough spare power and data cables in your PC. Once upon a time, I had chosen the wrong HDD as destination drive in a clone process, which was when I have learned that lesson once and forever.

The special thing about SSDs is that there is one thing which you should do after cloning, i.e. when the O/S already runs from the new SSD: Check if the O/S has really recognized the SSD as SSD (and not as HDD) and if it is actually using the TRIM command (to learn about it, google for: [Windows|Linux|...] check if trim enabled).

Furthermore, there might be issues with SSDs if you use drive encryption, but this wasn't part of your question.