hdd to ssd migration or fresh?

I just got the t440p, should I migrate the factory installation from a hdd to ssd or start fresh installation?

 

fresh install is always your best bet.

 

I agree, fresh install is always the best. I was lazy and used the factory image for my t440p, though. It works too.

 

^^^^^

Agreed 1001% especially when one is moving from a spinning drive to SSD.

 

If you understand the difference in how HDD compares to SSD you can image the drive, but I agree you're better to do the install so that you're optimised for a solidstate drive. It will take longer but will be an easier task to complete.

 

I *should* be receiving an X240 tomorrow if UPS shipping is to be believed and I will be replacing the HDD with an SSD. Is there a way that I can do a fresh install and keep the recovery partition?

 

I'd say it's a personal thing. Some people want to keep the factory settings because the computer was designed to ship that way, and there might be some software that came with the computer that you want to take advantage of. Some just want to start clean and fresh. I'd say, do what suits your needs and desires best. You need not make someone elses preferences your own.

 

You want to do a clean install of windows, but keep the original recovery partition on the new SSD? Not sure why you'd want to do that, but if I were you I would simply get a USB drive and copy the recovery partition on to it. Worst comes to worst, at least you'll have the original HDD that will always have the recovery partition on it.

 

Burn a set of recovery discs then install the new SSD and use them to reinstall your OS. This should create the recovery partition on your new drive.

ps. also keep in mind that when an SSD fails, it usually goes out like a lightbulb and you'll lose all your data and the recovery partition. Many of us prefer to have both an SSD boot drive and a HDD for storage. When an HDD fails it usually gives you warning and you can recover your data and many failures can be fixed with a format, unlike the average SSD failure.

 

Paraphrasing Stevie "Bad Boy" Ballmer: backups, backups, backups, backups... Seriously, no HDD instead of SSD or even RAID setups with multiple redundancies will ever replace the simple backups. And if you use something like Seafile (my personal preference) or Dropbox/Google Drive/SkyDrive/Whateverdrive you can also get benefits of no-hassle, versioning, and access to your files from anywhere you want. Just be prudent with files that can potentially be damaging to you if they ever get into the wrong hands and encrypt them before uploading into cloud that you have no control over (the reason why I prefer Seafile - you can deploy your own private instance, and I have my own server over which I have full physical control).

PS: I have an SSD I bought in January or February 2009, it still sees moderate daily usage and is still alive and kicking. None of the SSDs I ever bought have died on me yet. Even for the latests SSDs if it dies before you feel the need for newer, faster and bigger one it most likely was a defective unit.

PPS: Oh, and I had HDDs die on my w/o any warning. No SMART reports about any problems, just one day wouldn't spin up in the morning. Had four of those since 2004, all from different series and manufacturers.

 

So I'm assuming there is a Lenovo Application that allows one to create recovery discs? If so then I'll go along that path. I was planning on using the HDD that the system came with as a backup drive (I ordered the 1 TB HDD for a few bucks more since I was planning on using it as a backup drive).

 

SSD drives should be far more reliable since there are no parts to wear and nothing moving, but at least until the last year or two the SSDs generally had a higher rate of failure. Like any new technology it will improve with time and we are now seeing less premature SSD failures, but there are still reports of them "going out" like a lightbulb with no warning.

Of course any piece of electronics can fail this way and if you are seeing multiple drives or other equipment failing like that you might want to check your electric service or get a good quality UPS.

In general, a HDD will fail slowly and show signs long before it becomes unusable. I've had over 50 fail in the past decade, many will still work for a short period of time and more often than not I've had no problem getting valuable data off the drive before it was retired. As far as SSD failures go, Intel has always had low failures, but some other companies have had over 10% fail in the first few weeks. HDDs have an initial high rate of failure because of shipping damage and lack of extensive testing, but this is understandable since there are so many moving parts and for an SSD to have a higher rate of failure is shocking, but thankfully most manufacturers have worked out their manufacturing problems.

 

Fresh Install, no bloatware.


Cheers
3Fees

 

ya, did that.

 

So I'll chime in here. My X240 w/500gig platter drive will be here Monday. I bought and have here a Samsung 840 EVO (500gb) SSD that I want to use in the machine.

My plan is one of three options:

1. Clone the drive to my SSD using Samsung's software (probably a bad idea)
2. Burn the recovery DVDs from the 500gig platter drive, install SSD, install OS fresh. (safest bet, but would include Lenovo factory partitions and a recovery partition)
3. I also have a new, unused Win8 Pro DVD. I could do a 100% clean install (non-Lenovo image) and then install the Lenovo drivers, etc once I boot up.

Of the 3, which is the best option? I seem to recall firmware/low level optimizations that are included with the Lenovo image. Is that still the case? If not, I'd assume #3 would be the best option.

Any insight or suggestions?

 

Personally, I'd go with # 3.

This approach leaves you with the choice of what you *really* want to install out of all the Lenovo software...

My $0.02 only...

 

I cloned my drive to a 500GB 840 evo and it worked perfectly fine. It is probably the quickest way. You could also make a recovery drive using a usb flash disk then use that on the new drive.

With the third option, did you buy win8 pro or is that pirated? If you bought it, I wouldn't use it, because you have a perfectly legit cd key that comes with the laptop itself. I would simply use software to obtain that cd key, then do a fresh install of windows. If it is pirated, then that's all up to you

 

It's bought and legit. I don't pirate software.

Also, I have no other use for the Win8 DVD, and I'd be moving from Home to Professional, so I think it may be worth it to do #3.

 

As a software developer I can only applaud that attitude, thank you.

It is the quickest way only if partitions are properly aligned for SSD, on multiples of erase block (usually, IIRC, around 256KiB). Otherwise cloning HDD to SSD will create partitioning that leads to write amplification and increased wear. The Lifehacker article here provides easy to follow guide even if you're not a computer tech.

 

If your X240 came with Win 8 Basic preinstalled, then I would presume that a fresh install with your Win 8 Pro DVD would indeed consume the Pro license while technically "voiding" the preinstalled Basic license (since it's OEM).

Otherwise your Pro license should remain "unsullied" if you will. In fact when I exercised exactly your option 3 (just to wipe off the Lenovo bloatware) with a Win 8 Pro OEM DVD that I bought for this express purpose, it went without a hitch. It did not ask for a key to activate. Therefore I have grounds to assume that it simply activated with my preinstalled Pro key in UEFI.

My money would not be wasted as I can still use the downgrade rights of Win 8 Pro OEM to install Win 7 Pro on an XP desktop that I'll have to replace in a few short months.

Anyhow my question to people:

Do I have to do anything special in the BIOS / UEFI to prepare for a new SSD?

I will embark on a fresh OS install again when an SSD arrives. I wasn't quite aware of any need to "align" a brand new SSD for a fresh Windows installation.

 

The new SSD should work without a hitch. Even if you don't align the SSD, it will still work. Aligning can be done at a later time, but isn't absolutely necessary.

 

Unless you're cloning the install from a spinning drive, the OS will align itself automatically.

 

Other than making sure that SATA controller is set to AHCI mode (should be by default, unless someone fiddled with firmware settings) - not a thing.

Aligning not an SSD, partitions on it. It's necessary only if you clone onto SSD an (older, I'm not sure about newer since I don't have any) HDD with partititons aligned to cylinders instead of 1MiB. In case of fresh installation onto unpartitioned SSD manual alignment is necessary only if you install OS older than Windows 7.

It will work, and aligning can be done at a later time, but the sooner it's done the better.

 

Well, just because it's a new machine, I prefer fresh installation. The emphasis is do you know how to do? Have you done this before? Do you have install disc?
If you want to migrate, I can also give you some advise, some migration software can do this easily and is free, you can google to find a one. Backup first, this is a good habit, My tool is Aomei Backupper, a freeware. uh,Yours is new machine, probably no important thing. In fact, the mentioned backup tool can also do "migration": back up first and restore later.
Cheers.