Cloning 500gb HDD to 120gb SSD

[LiengLiengZA]

Hi all,

As the title states the wife has a 500gb hdd in a laptop.

There is Sage Accounting and Pastel installed on it. All in all the hdd has used 35gb in total. I bought a 120gb SSD to speed up the laptop.

But now I need your help. As far as I know the drives must be the same size to clone.

My question is, can I clone the 500gb hdd to the 120gb ssd or must I create a partition of the 500gb and then clone?

Please any advice or tutorial would be highly appreciated.

 

[Sinbad]

I believe macrium reflect free will allow you to resize partitions on the target device as you go

 

[Tman*]

If the data contained on the drive is only 35gb you can use a program called Acronis to perform the clone. In the case its a primary drive the new drive will be bootable too.


There are loads of programs capable of doing this job, i am sure there will be more suggestions. Ive used Acronis for more than 5 years

 

[Sl8er]

If the data contained on the drive is only 35gb you can use a program called Acronis to perform the clone. In the case its a primary drive the new drive will be bootable too.


There are loads of programs capable of doing this job, i am sure there will be more suggestions. Ive used Acronis for more than 5 years

I've done exactly what the OP wants, with Acronis, in the past.
Cloned bootable large drive [500GB HDD] to smaller drive [250GB SSD].
Very easy and worked perfectly.

 

[N@t3]

Acronis or Macrium

 

[LiengLiengZA]

Thank you very much for the feedback.
I have used Macrium Reflect in the past for 1tb to 1tb but wasn't sure if it would work in my instance but since some of you have done it I will give it a shot.

 

[ponder]

You could also resize the existing partition smaller then use any cloning software but macrium will do the job...

 

[Sl8er]

You could also resize the existing partition smaller then use any cloning software but macrium will do the job...

That's the thing about Acronis, you don't have to do any resizing of anything.
As long as the data doesn't exceed the destination drive size, the source drive can be any size

(EDIT: Or did I just understand you wrong and you meant that macrium does this as well?)

 

[SykomantiS]

I believe macrium reflect free will allow you to resize partitions on the target device as you go

Came here to say exactly this. Macrium Reflect will allow you to clone from a larger drive to a smaller one, as long as the spaced used on the larger drive does not exceed the capacity of the smaller drive.

 

[Sl8er]

Came here to say exactly this. Macrium Reflect will allow you to clone from a larger drive to a smaller one, as long as the spaced used on the larger drive does not exceed the capacity of the smaller drive.

Cool, that's what I was wondering

 

[CataclysmZA]

There is Sage Accounting and Pastel installed on it. All in all the hdd has used 35gb in total. I bought a 120gb SSD to speed up the laptop.

But now I need your help. As far as I know the drives must be the same size to clone.

My question is, can I clone the 500gb hdd to the 120gb ssd or must I create a partition of the 500gb and then clone?

/snip

EDIT 2: Don't mind me, I'm just a regular moron. Reflect works fine, and there's a menu to adjust the partition size.

EDIT: Depending on which SSD brand you've bought, you might also get a free copy of Acronis for cloning the drive.

 

[agentrfr]

You can do it manually yourself with clonezillla (hdd to smaller ssd)

By manual, I mean literally manually as in copying the partitions byte for byte. It is command line though

I've had issues with automated software before (Acronis and another one cant remember the name) not working or wanting 100 dollars to finish the job. BS if you ask me.

Dont pay for something that should be free

Pop me a PM if you need help

 

[Sinbad]

In Macrium Reflect, you'll see that Windows adds the recovery partition to the end of the drive. The trouble is, it will only clone over as many partitions as the destination drive will fit. Macrium uses the partition size to determine how to clone the drive, it doesn't use the actual space taken up by the volume to determine if things should be shrunk.

View attachment 888798

Windows does not need this partition to function, although it does help in recovering the OS to an earlier system restore point if there is a problem.

To clone the drive, all you'd need to do is untick the checkbox for the recovery partition, and it will clone over just fine to the new drive.

More advanced programs like Acronis will be able to resize the Windows partition in order to shrink all partitions to fit on the destination drive, which is one area where Macrium isn't as useful.

EDIT: Depending on which SSD brand you've bought, you might also get a free copy of Acronis for cloning the drive.

You can resize it with macrium as well
Drag the partitions down one by one excluding the recovery. Then resize the big one using cloned partition properties, leaving enough for the recovery. Then drag the recovery down.

 

[CataclysmZA]

You can resize it with macrium as well
Drag the partitions down one by one excluding the recovery. Then resize the big one using cloned partition properties, leaving enough for the recovery. Then drag the recovery down.

Well now.

That certainly changes things. I had no idea I could change the partition sizes in this menu. Normally I just step through things and let Reflect run in the background.

 

[PsyWulf]

You can resize it with macrium as well
Drag the partitions down one by one excluding the recovery. Then resize the big one using cloned partition properties, leaving enough for the recovery. Then drag the recovery down.

Well you can drag all of them down then the data partition,it'll resize it to fit in what remains

 

[LiengLiengZA]

/snip

EDIT 2: Don't mind me, I'm just a regular moron. Reflect works fine, and there's a menu to adjust the partition size.

EDIT: Depending on which SSD brand you've bought, you might also get a free copy of Acronis for cloning the drive.

Bought the Crucial 120gb SSD. I read that you get cloning software bundled with but remains to be seen.

 

[LiengLiengZA]

Well you can drag all of them down then the data partition,it'll resize it to fit in what remains

Nice to know thanks.

 

[Sinbad]

Bought the Crucial 120gb SSD. I read that you get cloning software bundled with but remains to be seen.

There are so many options... I did my last SSD clone with EaseUS (I own a license) butyou can do it with their trial as well

 

[Dan C]

Acronis FTW

 

[LiengLiengZA]

Acronis FTW

Used Macrium the previous time...maybe I should try Arconis....