Making a New SSD Root while Performing a Clean Install without Losing Data

[tanispaladin]

I'm about to do a clean upgrade from 20.3 to 21.1, but I also just added a new, larger and faster 2TB SSD to my system. I'd like to use that drive going forward as my primary drive rather than my old PCI-e 3 1TB SSD, but I also don't want to lose my existing data, settings, or software. I'm aware of utilities like Clonezilla and Gparted, as well as Mint's internal backup tool, but I'm not really sure of exactly how I should go about things, or what the best order of operations would be.

Currently, I have yet to even partition my new drive, because I don't want to waste time and effort screwing around; I just want to perform the safest and cleanest upgrade/drive swap I can, in one fell swoop.

I've spent several hours now looking at YouTube tutorials and reading articles, but nothing speaks to my specific case and I'm concerned about getting my wires crossed or performing a step out of order if I attempt to just synthesize or stray from them on my own, as I'm not a power user—I'm not totally incompetent and I've been using Mint for a while so I'm familiar with the basics of the terminal, but I also have neither the time nor inclination to become a sysadmin just to do general PC tasks in the GUI and play games.

Can anyone provide me with a clear, direct explanation of the best way to go about achieving my goal and the proper order of operations to follow, so I don't have to waste time and risk data trying to tinker with my system without guidance or expertise, please?

I'm grateful for your time.

[lsemmens]

The easiest way to do this is to remove the old drive from your system, Install your new drive and OS. Then plug the old drive in as a slave. That way you can then copy whatever you need across.

[tanispaladin]

Now that you say that, that does seem easier, but won't that still mean that I'm going to lose settings and, if not lose software, have to manually reinstall or copy over everything to restore it? That might still be worth it, but it sounds like a fairly tedious proposition.

Thanks for the suggestion, btw, I'm a bit amused now to think something like that hadn't already occurred to me.

[tanispaladin]

I would like to make it clear, just in case anyone reading has missed it, that I am still hoping for an answer to my question about possibly losing settings or software, in solving my issue by making my old SSD a slave.

I'd also like to state that, while I assume it was meant by that that I should just reinstall it afterwards and pull from it, I'm not certain that that was the suggestion being made, and am hesitant to go back digging in my M.2 slots without knowing beforehand if that's actually going to work.

[AndyMH]

You can either:

• upgrade to LM21.1 on your existing drive and then clone it or

• clone LM20.3 to your new drive and then upgrade that

https://foxclone.org/
read the section on cloning in the user guide.

[3pinner]

The easiest way to do this is to remove the old drive from your system, Install your new drive and OS. Then plug the old drive in as a slave. That way you can then copy whatever you need across.

I have successfully upgraded Mint this way several times with no loss of data. It's simple and works well.