Will ShadowProtect Desktop be able to do this?

Here is my situation:

I have a DELL Alienware Aurora ALX desktop (Windows 7 Home Premium) that came with two 500GB HDD in a RAID 0 configuration with the following three partitions:

Volume: (Blank)
File System: (Blank)
Status: (Healthy OEM Partition)
Capacity: 39MB Free: 39MB

Volume: OS ( C: )
File System: (NTFS)
Status: (Healthy Boot, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
Capacity: 922.87GB Free: 307.78GB

Volume: RECOVERY
File System: (NTFS)
Status: (Healthy System, Active, Primary Partition)
Capacity: 8.61GB Free: 4.27GB

I want to add a 256GB SSD drive to my system and use that as my C: OS drive.

I can get my current C: (OS) drive down to under 200GB by moving all of my huge video and movie files to another HDD that I have, leaving only the OS and my applications. This will then easily fit on the new SSD drive.

I want to image this current C: (OS) RAID 0 array with ShadowProtect onto another HDD (obviously NOT part of my current RAID array), install the SSD, then restore that image onto the SSD and hopefully boot from the new SSD and have my system back as it was previously.

Will ShadowProtect recognize the different partition sizes from the old RAID 0 image and configure everything on the new SSD so everything "just works?"

I realize the partition size on the RAID image is almost four times larger than the partition size is going to be on the new SSD, but the data itself will be under 200GB, so I'm hoping ShadowProtect will make all the necessary adjustments when restoring the RAID image to the new SSD.

Or am I hoping for too much?

I really don't want to start with a fresh install of Windows7 on the new SSD. I would much rather just be able to restore my RAID image onto the new SSD and use that as my new system drive with all my applications intact.

But I need to know if ShadowProtect can handle all the necessary adjustments that need to be made because of the different partition sizes when restoring the RAID image.

Will ShadowProtect also handle "drive alignment" properly on the new SSD prior to restoring the image? Or is that something I'm going to have to do myself before I restore the image?

I planned on posting this on the ShadowProtect forum, but for some reason, my registration there isn't going through...thanks for any help...

 

Gary,

Unless things have changed Shadow Protect can't restore to a smaller partition. But I doubt any imaging app, even those that can restore to a smaller partition, would work due to the data spread.

If your original partition was....( * is sectors in use, - is free space)

[---**----**--]

then the target partition to restore into can not be smaller than...

[---**----**]

The foolproof way to do this is to resize your current partitions to 250 GB (resize the OS and slide the Recovery partition), create images and restore the images to the SSD.

When you restore, remember the Win7 partition is not the active partition.

 

Which brand of SSD you have bought?

Some SSD vendors have provided an OS migration app for users, e.g. Intel.

 

Gary... there are additional issues to be concerned with when trying to restore an HDD image to an SSD.

For maximum SSD throughput, you will need TRIM activated in W7 (it won't be on for the RAID array). If your RAID array HDDs are not using the AHCI (Advanced Host Control Interface) option in the BIOS, they will need it for the SSDs to handle both TRIM and the parallel command queueing available with SATA interfaces. If it's not on in the BiOS, the W7 driver for it needs to be activated first in W7 before you can turn it on in the BiOS... if not, BSOD.

Since, when your current HDD W7 was built, it did not detect an SSD, it will not know about yours when you restore the image (it only checks during the build process). This can be fixed later but additional W7 settings (preFetch, superFetch, autoDefrag, etc.) need to be manually set for optimal SSD usage.

There are lots of li'l issues when doing this type of transition. I can't send you to one site for all the info (doesn't exist) but it is available via lots of web surfing.

You really need to plan this out carefully for a successful SSD integration with a previous HDD image, otherwise you may be dissappointed with the results (mainly throughput). Also (something many people forget), if you're using a SATA III SSD with a SATA II hardware connection, you'll only get SATA II speeds which will be significantly lower than the rated SATA III SSD IOPs/throughput. You'll also only get SATA II speeds with a resident PCIe v1 subsystem (max 250mB) on your mainboard... a v2 subsystem is needed for the 500mB throughput needed for real SATA III speeds of an SSD.

 

It might be worth looking at Future Systems
Casper 7.0

http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/features.aspx

 

Haven't bought one yet...but leaning towards Corsair Performance Pro or Samsung 830

 

Thanks for all the advice. I am aware of many of these issues since I've been doing a lot of research.

I'm looking to purchase imaging software to get the ball rolling on this, and was looking at Acronis TI 2012, but saw all the negative reviews, so I started looking elsewhere, and felt ShadowProtect seemed to have the best reviews and the highest reliability, which is all I'm really concerned with...the price difference is negligible when you're talking about reliability in my opinion.

I also thought I read on the SP forums where someone recommended the Paragon Migration tool ($20) to migrate your OS and larger HDD partitions over to smaller partition SSDs...but then in a subsequent post, a ShadowProtect user wrote that there was no need to spend an extra $20 on that software when SP can already accomplish this sort of thing.

Here's the thread if anyone is interested:
http://forum.storagecraft.com/Community/forums/p/3965/18479.aspx#18479

So, I guess what I'm asking here is if any SP users have successfully migrated a HDD system image with a larger partition size over to a SSD with a smaller partition size...or if not SP, what imaging software will accomplish this, if any?

I know my situation is further complicated somewhat by my RAID 0 setup for the system drive...not sure how that affects matters with regards to proper alignment when restoring to the SSD...

 

Gary,

See https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=305838&page=5#121
and adjacent posts. Also Mantra's link.

The compact option is interesting. It compacts the file system but doesn't alter the source partition size.

 

Gary... just to let you know. I've just recently built 2-SSDs from larger previous HDD-based systems using IFW. One build used ADD (Acronis Disk Director) first to shrink the partition size to that smaller than the target SSD, then used IFW to image the HDD and restore to the SSD. The second build used the COMPACT feature of IFW during the imaging process to shrink the active area (used sectors) of the existing partition to something less than the target SSD size, imaged the resultant partition then did the restore. During each restoration I made sure the partition being restored was being "Set to ACTIVE."

Both of these restorations were successful. Then I had to "SSDify" Windows 7 to make sure all the proper BiOS/driver/W7 tweaks were made... all was well after that.

Hope this helps!

 

As I know, Samsung 830 has provided Norton Ghost 15 and Samsung SSD Magician for data migration or disk cloning