3

I've a dell laptop that has a 512 GB Hard Disk. It has windows and Linux installed in it. I am planning to buy an SSD of similar size(500 GB or 512 GB). How should I migrate my whole system(Windows+linux+all data files) to the SSD, so that I can just replace my HDD with the SSD, and still have exactly the same system?

Would rsync do this job? I want to use rsycn because even if for some reason the transfer is interrupted, I would be able to resume it.

Tayyab Mazhar
  • 141
  • 1
  • 6

1 Answers1

5

I use Clonezilla for such tasks. It'll fully clone copy a hard disk to another, regardless of type, rotating, ssd, etc. It can also clone partitions, but it's much easier to clone the whole disk, especially since you surely got multiple partitions (two OSes). Of course the new disk must be equal or larger in size for the procedure to run smoothly.

Don't be intimidated by Clonezilla's text interface, it's really easy to use. Boot from Clonezilla boot cd or usb, locate the source and destination disk (be careful on this, you wouldn't want to make a mistake!) and let it roll; the default settings are sensible.

In case you cannot find an equal or larger ssd, you could shrink the existing last partition on the hdd. If it's ext4 or ntfs it can be done, xfs cannot. You can also shrink the partitions on the start of disk, but then you'll have to move the partitions that follow. You can use GParted for this task, but it's slow and a bit dangerous.

Another way would be to clone Windows partition, then make an empty partition for Linux and use rsync to tranfer everything on Linux. I don't think rsync on Windows could accomplish the task for Windows system, that's why I'm suggesting cloning Win part.

Krackout
  • 2,480
  • 9
  • 25
  • Ok, so if use clonezilla to do this, and then replace the hard disk with the ssd in my laptop, would I be able to use both windows/linux without a problem? – Tayyab Mazhar Aug 10 '20 at 09:41
  • 1
    Yes, sure. I've done it many times. But since you have a laptop, can you connect both disks concurrently? Using a usb box for example to insert the ssd to the box and connect it inside the laptop after cloning. Or you could clone your hdd disk to a file (that's also an option in Clonezilla), to an external usb disk. Then remove the hdd from laptop and put the ssd in its place and restore the file-disk image to ssd disk. – Krackout Aug 10 '20 at 09:46
  • Canr use a usb since the one I have is just 16 GB. I have a case in which i can insert my hard drive and then connect through a usb port. – Tayyab Mazhar Aug 10 '20 at 09:51