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XPS 8930, swapping my 2TB HDD for Samsung 850 EVO SSD
I just received my first ever Dell (coming from a ASUS guy) current specs are as follows
i7 - 8086k
Windows 10 Home
8GB RAM at 2666Mhz
ASUS GTX 1060 6GB
2TB HDD
256 GB SSD
My main question is, can I swap my 2TB HDD into a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD. I am not worried about loosing storage space. This PC was also labeled Certified Refurbished, which has no issues at all. I have a spare new SSD laying around that I would like to put into this machine. Here is my thoughts...
My 2TB HDD is labeled.....OS (C: ) 1.75TB free of 1.81TB, and (what I assume is the) SSD currently in the machine is....DATAPART1 (F: ) 238 GB free of 238 GB
1). Does that mean my start up is on my HDD right now? I was almost positive the dell outlet website listed the startup is supposed to be under the SSD portion
2). Could I go ahead use the Samsung magician data migration software and clone what is currently on the 2TB HDD to my 500 GB 850 EVO SSD without any issues? And then power down, swap components, and then re-boot back up normally, so that way everything on my pc is stored on SSD.
I have done a HDD to SSD swap in the past on my old windows 7 machine but I have not messed with a 2 storage system before, and the fact my current HDD is labeled (OS) makes me think its under that portion.
Please feel free to ask for any more information, I just do not want to mess up my new pc.
Thanks
Vic384
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February 17th, 2019 17:00
1) It does appear that the HDD is the boot drive since it is OS(C:)
2) You could clone the HDD but before you do that, I would go into the BIOS and change SATA Mode from RAID to AHCI. The cloning software is called Samsung Data Migration. Samsung Magician is a different piece of software that does firmware updates, performance benchmark, performance optimization, over provisioning, etc. Samsung Magician requires SATA mode to be AHCI. When you complete the cloning with the Samsung software you need to shutdown the system if it doesn't do it automatically and disconnect the HDD before booting up again. If everything is working you can re-connect the HDD and re-initialize it to use as additional storage. When you re-connect the HDD you will need to boot using F12 to make sure you are booting the SSD.
The 256 GB SSD should not affect anything you are doing except when you clone you need to make sure you are cloning the HDD to the 500 GB SSD.
Luckkide
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February 17th, 2019 17:00
Thank you for the reply, I will go ahead and swap and see what happens. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going encounter any road bumps knowing dell is sometimes picky with what you put into them or how you go about certain things. I will report back when the swap is completed either later tonight or first thing tomorrow.
Luckkide
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February 17th, 2019 19:00
Tesla1856
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February 17th, 2019 19:00
1. Yes.
2. Sounds like it. Was therefore likely originally returned for being "slow".
According to reports here from others, this accidentally happens from time to time.
You have lots of options. If only Windows-10 is installed, I think I would just install (only) the SSD and clean install Windows. If there is no other licensed software installed, I'm not sure what you are trying to save with Cloning.
https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R7-M-2-NVMe-bootable-options/td-p/6073037
Vic384
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February 18th, 2019 03:00
You can store the HDD for future safety but with continued Windows updates and your installed applications it will become dated. A better option would be to used it as additional data storage and do image backups of your boot drive. Macrium Reflect Free Edition is a good option for doing image backups and creating Rescue Media for restoring images.
catilley1092
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February 23rd, 2019 19:00
I agree, Macrium Reflect is a great option!:Smile:
When my XPS 8700 was still new with a 1TB Seagate HDD installed, was able to use the bootable Macrium rescue media to clone all of my partitions to a 120GB Samsung 840 EVO. To include Recovery & left 5GB of empty space at the right end of drive.
While it's recommended to leave 10% free, it wasn't possible with this small of a drive & in 2013/early 2014, a 120-128GB SSD was like $129.99 on promo. Later, would go to 256GB & now have a 512GB Samsung 850 Pro plus a 1TB HDD for storage.
The older Macrium Reflect with Linux based media wouldn't do this, would only restore a backup to the same size or larger drive. WinPE would bring a lot of features only found on paid for backup software. The other cool thing about Macrium is there's an option to add it to the boot menu for faster backups, restores & cloning (assuming a working computer). One should always create rescue media, every time Macrium upgrades & store the ISO on an external drive, or burn to CD, if an RW optical drive is installed.
I use the ISO with the Rufus USB tool, the option is there to build media for both modern & legacy computers.
https://rufus.ie/
Good Luck!
Cat