Tech 911Do you have a technical question to keep up at night? We would love to answer that! Send an email to [email protected] with “Tech 911” in the subject line.Replacing an antique mechanical disk with a super-fast solid state disk is one of the best upgrades you can do to a computer or laptop. While it won’t turn your 8-year-old HP into a new M1 Mac, you’ll definitely feel and appreciate the difference (especially if you pair it with extra RAM, but let’s not get too wild).
Lifehacker Reader Len has a dilemma. He wants to know how to get all his data from the automatic mechanical drive of his laptop to the new heat of his solid-state disk. He writes:
‘I bought a Samsung SSD 500GB SATA 6Gbps to upgrade my old Toshiba laptop. What is the best way to do this and transfer the data from the old disk? ‘
An upgrade of the storage is a great time to start anew
You may not like my answer, Len, but I think it’s the best one: disabling your hard drive is a great excuse to install a new version of your operating system – which I assume is Windows 10 , but if not, we talked about it, too.
G / O Media can get a commission
Of course, you can easily clone your entire mechanical disk to your new SSD, but it will require a little more hardware, and you will probably use it once and forget it.
Replacing the hard drive of your laptop usually means removing the primary hard drive and inserting a new one (since I can not think of many laptops that have space for a second drive). It is a bit different from a regular computer, where you can install the new SSD, connect it to your motherboard and run both disks at the same time. In that case, you would have cloned your original disk on your new disk, disconnected and removed the old one, and connected the new one to the original SATA connection. In general, your system should start well with your new disk, and you will not miss a ride.
With a laptop, it gets a little trickier. You need a cheap external case or USB-to-SATA adapter to connect to your SSD so you can connect your SSD to the USB port of your laptop. You will then execute a disk clone, just as before. Depending on how much data needs to be transferred and the USB speed you are working with, this may take some time.
What I suggest you do instead is take this time audit the data on your laptop. What are you doing? really need? What can you get rid of later or download again if you need to? If you’re comfortable storing a bunch of iTunes movies on your system, or if you have a bunch of music files that you rarely listen to, you probably do not need it to consume space on your laptop.
Where possible, transfer your data to cloud storage so that it is backed up elsewhere and only accessible if necessary. Programs and programs? Make a list, save or make up a mind of any specific institution you care about, and do not worry about it; you can always reinstall it later.
I try to use my laptop as a simple workstation. When I’m working on something, I try to edit it in the cloud, if possible. If it has to live on my desk, it’s going somewhere else when I’m done with it – usually back to the cloud, but also if possible the trash.
I have a computer that I treat the same way. Photos and documents go to the cloud; the computer itself is usually the middle ground between raw materials and final product. (I played too much Dyson Sphere Program lately.) I stream my media, where possible, rather than storing it on my hard drive for years, or I transfer it to a NAS box where it can copy to my desktop, or anywhere, whenever I can want to use it.
If you work this way, backing up is very easy. I never cloned my hard drive again. I’m just copying my entire Windows user folder to another hard drive (to save data like my wallpapers and my downloads folder). If I were to experience a crippling problem with Windows, or even a total hard drive crash, I would reinstall Windows 10 from scratch. The setup takes less than an hour, and that includes installing the apps I use every day and my absurdly large Steam library.
So this is my suggestion: copy your essential data to the cloud, swap your chips, and reinstall Windows on your new one. You have an inflatable operating system that you can then fill in with the data you actually have need.
However, if you have too much data that you simply cannot share, you should follow the route I mentioned earlier. Spring for a row casing– possibly even a docking station – which supports both 2.5 “and 3.5” drives. Connect your SSD, clone the disk of your laptop to your SSD, and then swap the chips. Now, hold your old mechanical hard drive. Not only does it have a current backup of all your files, but you can also store it in the enclosure or docking station and use it as a secondary backup source.
As for the process of replacing the hard drive of your laptop with an SSD, you did not mention your exact model, so I can not give specific instructions. Generally, you need to remove a panel or the entire back of your laptop to access the hard drive. Here is a good foundation on what is involved:
I recommend investing in set a precision screwdriver for these kinds of things, but you may not need them if your regular screwdriver is good enough. Make sure you ground yourself before touching the inside of your laptop (so you can not fry anything with static electricity), and do your best to prevent the small screws you are working with from falling or misplacing. Otherwise, it should not be a very difficult upgrade.
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