Upgrade my X201 to OCZ SSD

Hi everyone! I just order a 120GB OCZ vertex 2 SSD from newegg for ($170, after $30 rebate). My X201 is running the preinstall Window 7 pro and i really want to keep it that way. So, my only option is to clone(mirror) the old HD to the new SSD. Here is my question:
1. How to mirror a bigger HD (320GB HD) into a smaller SSD (120GB). I am using the Acronis True Image Home 2010. I upgrade the HD on my T60p once from 60GB to 320GB
without problem. But never try a SSD before.

2. Before i start the mirror process, do i need to unallocated or format the SSD?

3. After mirror finish, do i need to change any setting on the BIOS or Win 7, before/after i install the New SSD?

Thankyou guy for all your input!

 

I suggest against doing a partition image because from what I remember, the disk won't be aligned. However, when you're doing clean install it will do that automatically (see: SSD Alignment - Windows 7 Forums ). If the SSD isn't aligned, there will be some performance penalty.

Also, if the boot partition (your C: drive) is full 320GB, I don't think there's a way to do a partition backup/ and restore to a smaller one from Acronis - unless you're doing literally file-by-file copy but I'm not sure whether that will work. The Win7 install will automatically do some other things like create another 100MB partition (that's used actually for booting?) etc.

 

What does this mean? Preinstall?

You have win7 Pro installed on the SSD, can't you just use it rather than cloning from your old Harddrive?

EDIT: Oh I see, my bad. The SSD isn't installed yet. I was in the same boat when I bought an SSD for my x61s, but because I also wanted to upgrade to win7 from vista I just used the win7 upgrade disk to do a clean install on the SSD. Is there anyway you can get your hands on a Win7Pro disk? If you can you could use it to do a clean install on your SSD and just use your windows serial number on the bottom of your x201 to activate it, I've read of people doing this, they had to phone microsoft to get it activated though, there are guides posted in these forums explaining ways to do a clean install on a new disk or ssd without having to phone microsoft I've never tried it though.

 

Acronis True Image 2010 User Guide
Chapter 10.2 Recovering a disk backup to a different capacity hard disk

http://advantage77.com/Files/TrueImage2010_UserGuide.en.pdf

 

As for alignment on the SSD, I have no idea about that. You should take a look in the forums on the Acronis website, there is lots of discussion there on this topic.

Here's a guy with the same question as you.
alignment on a SSD | Knowledge Base

 

Thank You guys! Thank you so much for all the inputs! I AM using factory preinstalled Win 7 Pro on my X201. The current Hd is 320Gb and i will Backup everything and Full Restore the computer. The New 120GB SSD is still in the mail and i should have it tomorrow! I will read all the links you guys told me tonight and tomorrow. I try to start the process once i recieved the new SSD. Will get back to you soon.

 

You should read this guide.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html

The author claims there is a legal way to download windows7 all versions, 32bit and 64bit. This would provide you a way to just install windows on the ssd rather than transferring the image. I have not done it this way myself, so read the thread thoroughly.

 

You can shrink the drive first to match or be lower than your SSD capacity before making the image, which itself has a lower usable capacity than stated.

 

Yes, that's an interesting idea. I was actually thinking how to go about the same thing as OP. Partition shrink, however, just takes too freaking long if you want to keep all the data. I tried it once.

The installations go really fast USB -> SSD though. So, what I ended up doing is doing a full win reinstall then after I had all the drivers, apps and such. It was just simply so much faster for me then figuring out first how to do a HD->SSD backup/restore and then how (if possible) to realign the SSD. Win install on an SSD was ~ 15mins (yeah you'll see its that fast) and each time you restart that's another 20-25 secs. I was done with all drivers, customizations, and apps (I typically install Cygwin+some its stuff, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Photoshop CS5, Mathematica, MATLAB and some other stuff like Pidgin, Skype etc.) in about an hour, hour and a half. Two hours max I guess depending what are you doing while things are installing.

After all that is done, THEN what I'd do is do a full SSD backup, with say Acronis. From what I understand, restoring disk that way will maintain the correct SSD alignment.

 

If you have windows 7, and provided your drive is not heavily fragmented and you still have sufficient free space, you can shrink it very quickly and easily using windows 7 itself.

Generally they let you shrink up to 50% recommended.

 

I tried that too (before I attempted to go through Acronis TrueImage). I don't remember why exactly didn't work but it gave me some kind of error. I had < 60GB occupied on a 320GB HD. That still doesn't resolve the second, alignment, issue. That's why I suggested full reinstall - unless someone can come up with a fully working procedure right away and which is actually faster.

 

The OCZ Vertex 2 SSD has 120GB unallocated space and i use Acronis True Image Home 2010 to clone the image from the old 320GB HDD to the new 120GB SSD.

I read the acronis forum to confirm that the Acronis True Image Home 2010 DO NOT support alignment on SSD but i use it anyway.

The original 320GB HDD are divided into 3 parts:
1-System_DRV...................[1.172GB]
2-Window7_OS(c)..............[287.2GB]
3-Lenovo_Recovery(q)........[9.766GB]

The Acronis Cloning software automatically resize the new 120GB SSD and it actually utilize the empty space on the System_DRV and Lenovo_Recovery and add into the Window7_OS(c)
1-System_DRV...................[685MB ]
2-Window7_OS(c)..............[100GB ]
3-Lenovo_Recovery(q)........[6.32 GB]

I don't know if i did it right or wrong, i manually resize the System_DRV and Lenovo_Recovery(q) BACK to the original size:
1-System_DRV...................[1.172GB]
2-Window7_OS(c)..............[96.19GB]
3-Lenovo_Recovery(q)........[9.766GB]

I started the cloning process and reinsert the new SSD back to my X201 and it runs without any problem so far. I installed all my application. It took 31 sec from the time i swipe my finger to the desktop screen appears (Lenovo screen..Windows screen...fingerprint/windows log in...desktop). Compare with my old 320GB HDD, the 320GB HDD took about 42 sec. Here is the Window Expericence Index and Crystal Disk Mark of the new OCZ Vertex 2 120Gb SSD:





Thank you Unreal25, gmoneyphatstyle and Smellycant for you help to guide me to the right direction. [+2] for everyone.

 

Hi Unreal25! thankyou for your help! i see you have the same SSD (OCZ Vertex 2 120GB) on your M17x. What is the your CDM and did u get ur rebate money from OCZ sucessfully? Thankyou!

 

If you feel like it, I'd be curious what the partition offset is on the SSD.

Open the command prompt
diskpart.exe
list disk
select disk x {x is your disk#}
list partition {it will list the offset for each partition}

More info on diskpart.exe
A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility

 

thanks gmoneyphatstyle! Here is the screen shot of the diskpart list of partition of my SSD:



So there is a 1024KB space in front of the system_DRV. Is there something to do with the SSD Alignment? Any effect to the SSD performance?

Thanks

 

Nice, utopian! Just curious, do you swipe the finger on Win login and from there it takes 31 second or from the time you press Power On button?

Here's the default CrystalDisk Mark run:



the only difference is that I did it with 100MB test size and 3 (not 5) times. Here's the one where you go to File, and under test data choose "All 0x00 (0 Fill)":

.

There was no rebate offered when I ordered my SSD, so I had nothing to claim.

 

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but after doing a bit of reading on partition alignment, and offset, I got to wondering Acronis used the same offset from your harddrive as it did on the SSD.

The 1024KB is the windows7 default offset, so that's good, Acronis kept that offset and used it on your SSD. Unfortunately the diskpart.exe tool doesn't tell us the offset in KB for your second partition. I would assume the 1202MB is 1024KB+1201MB, which would be the correct offset, but it would be nice to know for sure.

 

i have to plan to change hdd to SSD soon. i heard SSD HDD is so quickly and perfect hdd at this time