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Question

Cloning

Oct 16, 2013 7:34PM PDT

If am tninking of replacing my hard drive with qan SSD. Can I back up to a DVD to clone my drive and if so how much data can I move. My system is approx 300gb and I am not exactly sure how this would work. Please excuse my basic knowledge of these things and thanks in advance. Vista 32

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: cloning
Oct 16, 2013 7:47PM PDT

Cloning would mean a disk to disk copy. But then you would need to buy a 512 GB SSD, and if those exist they are rather expensive and surely an overkilll.
With a DVD being 5 GB you would need 60 DVD's which is unlikely to go without one single error.

An hybrid disk might be a very good compromise.

Kees

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Answer
It's possible but be ready to be disappointed
Oct 17, 2013 1:19AM PDT

Vista, from what I read, does not support "trim". Look that up and also look up the alignment needs for optimizing SSDs. You would need to do a lot of work with your old drive getting it cleaned up and defragged before cloning to an SSD. These drives have read/write limitations so you disk activity needs to be limited. If you want to go SSD, your best option would probably be to do a clean installation. You'll want to buy a disk with plenty of extra space other than what you might need. After that you're probably better off avoiding activity that relocates data on the disk or removes data to make room for more.

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Answer
Expertize Needed
Oct 17, 2013 9:17AM PDT
Silly Hi Droosky,

Plain I can tell from your question, you don't have the expertize needed, to even understand the technicalities of what you are suggesting, so you are heading for disaster. People will give you elaborate answers, so you will think you can do it, then bang, disaster; you have to spend many hundreds of $ sorting things out. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, as they say. I hope this warning saves you.

Blush Your initial question is not even technically correct, and you did not supply specs of your system, or what you are trying to achieve, re forum standards. Your best bet, is to pay for some good advice from a helpfull tech, and those are hard to find.

Cool If you really want to make an improvement, your starting point is to buy a Windows 7 OS ( not an Upgrade ), because it's slimer and faster, and most techs won't bother with Vista. Now you don't have to clone, because you have the setup disk. Then buy another hard drive, or SSD, and build up a 2 HD system ..... OS on one hard drive, and your documents on the other. Using a HD this is very fast, but with an SSD it is lightning fast.

Sad I am in New Zealand, so I cannot help you any further.

Happy Regards Bill3333
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thanks
Oct 17, 2013 4:35PM PDT

Message understood