(SOLVED) HDD to SSD help request

[cam30era]

I am currently running Mint 13. I would like to replace my 250gb SATA HDD with an 256gb mSATA SSD. Have an open mSATA slot, so both drives can be installed simultaneously. I would like to move everything to the SDD, and just mothball (or remove) the old HDD.

So, here's the issue(s). I am a noob, and don't fully understand the instructions that I have googled (and if I don't understand what I'm doing, I won't do it). Nothing seems easy (to me), and various articles seem to be contradictory. Confused by "ddrescue, liveCD, fdisk, gparted, etc.

If someone can point me to an easy to understand, and easy to follow step by step guide, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.....

[bigj231]

One thing you could do (easiest and fastest) use clonezilla or something to make an image of your system and then restore it to your SSD. Then you can use any of the SSD optimization guides on the internet.
The better way is to reinstall to just the SSD, but create a separate /home partition and copy your old home directory into the new partition. again, follow a SSD optimization guide.

Here's a good guide: http://www.howtogeek.com/62761/how-to-t ... rformance/

Also, if you're not going to use your HDD, just get a SATA SSD. They're generally cheaper, and I believe significantly faster. You can also use another PC to copy files without any special cables.

In any case, good luck with your SSD. It is one of the best upgrades for any system. My lowly i3 laptop boots in under 25 seconds.

[cam30era]

Thank you Bigj31.

[bigj231]

If you choose to get a sata sad, you can get an external enclosure for your HDD and just clone it while booted into a live environment. that way you wouldn't need a third drive or another system.

also, if you have a WD hard drive you can get a copy of acronis trueimage for free. I have used that with success

My final piece of advice here is to buy the best ssd you can budget. It's not fun to replace one 6 months down the road

[cam30era]

Thanks, again Bigj231 for the tips. Will get a Sata SSD & enclosure as you suggested. No WD drive here, so I'll research clonezilla. By "live environment", did you mean boot from the Mint 13 DVD, and clone my hdd to ssd that way?

As I understand your feedback, if I clone my drive to the ssd from inside a live environment, then shut down the system and replace the hdd with the ssd, my computer should boot successfully? Then all I have to do is optimize my system for the ssd?

Edit: Looks like I will use "Clonezilla live".

[bigj231]

As I understand your feedback, if I clone my drive to the ssd from inside a live environment, then shut down the system and replace the hdd with the ssd, my computer should boot successfully? Then all I have to do is optimize my system for the ssd?

That is correct. You will most likely have to repair or reinstall GRUB as well. Look at the Ubuntu boot repair CD, or just install it from the Mint 13 DVD.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2 ... D_terminal

[cam30era]

Thanks, again bigj231. I've burned a CloneZilla Live CD and a Boot-Repair CD. Should have the SATA SSD late Friday. Will report back results after.

Best regards

[cam30era]

It worked! Many thanks, bigj231. Received Crucial 256 gb SSD this afternoon. Cloned HHD to SSD with Clonezilla live. Very easy. No hitches at all. No apparent GRUB problems, so did not have to run Boot-Repair. Still have to optimize system for SSD. Thanks, again.

[bigj231]

Glad it worked out for you. Let us know if you have any more questions. The most important optimizations are the fstab options and the swapiness setting IMO. The I/O scheduler will make a little difference is speed, but isn't as important for the life of the drive. I personally like the BFQ scheduler, but you have to install a different kernel to get that. Some people prefer deadline over noop, but both are faster than CFQ on a SSD.

And when using that guide, gedit is an easier text editor than nano. Just something to keep in mind.

[catweazel]

It worked! Many thanks, bigj231. Received Crucial 256 gb SSD this afternoon. Cloned HHD to SSD with Clonezilla live. Very easy. No hitches at all. No apparent GRUB problems, so did not have to run Boot-Repair. Still have to optimize system for SSD. Thanks, again.

Well done. Next you'll want to buy another SSD and run the two together in RAID0.

There are some things you can do to extend the life of your SSD. Let me know if you're interested and I'll run up a tutorial in the appropriate forum.

[cam30era]

There are some things you can do to extend the life of your SSD. Let me know if you're interested and I'll run up a tutorial in the appropriate forum.

Thanks for the feedback and offer. The link proceeded by bigj231 above worked OK for my. Took quite a bit of research, as I had zero experience with editing fstab. Might be worthwhile to post a step by step guide for noobs, though. While all of this is probably intuitive for most, it definitely was not for me.

Many thanks again to everyone for their help.