I have been using a basic 128 SSD partitioned with basically Win 8 installed on one partition of 60 gb. That worked ok, but I decided to upgrade to a larger faster model and just installed the image from the smaller one on to the new. I am not sure if that was the best way to do it as it does not perform any better and maybe a little slower. I received an attractive email from Perfect Disk and installed that but to no good effect. I have never found de-fraggers to be of any benefit so don't why I changed my mind over this. Any thoughts/advice would be welcome.
djg05, Is the partition on the new SSD 1 MiB aligned? (2048 sector aligned) Which imaging app did you use?
Cloning is for lazy people who don't know how to install an OS (no offense to you) you will never get the 100% performance from a cloned OS and the possibilities of partition misalignment. Do it the hard way, backup, format, and start from fresh on the new SSD
For me imaging is the way to go. Just played with 8.1 using 7. With 7 & EaseUS Todo Backup Advanced Server I just restore an image and I'm good to go. If it's dissimilar hardware after the restore I change the partitions as needed with GParted. Easy Peasy.
I respect that, you are somehow right, if a system was 100% clean with no junkware installed, the correct drivers from the manufacturer, and using a proper cloning program that would align the partitions properly like Macrium Reflect or Paragon Migrate OS to SSD, then cloning would work the same. But the reason I always recommend a clean install is often people have had their Windows installation for a long time, and is cluttered with junk, thus affecting the overall performance of the system in general which in turn wouldn't give the 100% performance of that SSD, hence why I always recommend a clean install.
Thanks Brian I am never sure about the alignment issue and don't know how that should be checked. I used Active@ for the imaging. I have also noticed that I have "Service Host Local System" taking a lot of the resources. Edit - I have since discovered that that was being caused by Superfetch. I have now disabled it together with Prefetch. No discernable difference though.
Well in part I agree with you, but with this system since it was installed I have always kept a baseline image which is constantly returned to and the windows updates added and any necessary software also installed. That way any bloat is regularly discarded and only needed software added. I have a lot of business s/f installed and the thought of hours reinstalling it all is one to be avoided.
I have checked the alignment with AOMEI partition manager which says it is correct. This is also confirmed by the SSD dashboard app - see image below
Defraggers are NOT to be used on SSDs. Continued use of defraggers or Windows automatic background defragger (7 has it don't know if 8.1 does) will degrade performance of SSDs & shorten their lifespan.
