Windows Migrating OS to SSD from big HD

So I have been debating on whether to jump on the sandybride bandwagon. I have not, instead I figure I would invest into a decent SSD for my upgrade (going to new hardware later on, socket 2011 for example)

I dont have a SSD yet, but what would be a good utility to use to clone the drive over to a SSD. Possible problem is the fact that my array right now is a 500gb and at max I want a 128gb SSD. So I would want the ability to clone just certain folders (critical windows files) over to the new SSD and make that the boot drive. Current setup is a 2 x 250gb RAID 0 setup, so I wont be able to actually copy all data over to the SSD, and if I can avoid reinstalling Win 7 that would be ideal. As the only thing I am changing in the system is the drive.

Thanks for any and all help!

 

if you want to clone your windows, i think your gonna have to start uninstalling stuff to bring the os drive down to around 100gb. not sure how easy it's going to be to clone the raid array to a single drive though.

you willl need to backup any data you want to keep. and clean it out of the os drive(partition).

someone else might come back with the solution your after, it might be easier, to just do a clean install.

 

you will need to do a clean install as the os on the raid drive is split over the 2 drives and cant be cloned back onto one drive as the raid driver would only be 50% there and i think would corupt all the data,you may also "brick" the ssd attempting this......not good!!

 

I'd say the simplest way would be to back up all of your mission critical files onto an external hard drive or another PC i.e. work, documents, (game saves? If you care for those) and then do a fresh install of windows on a new SSD. Then re-install everything on the appropriate drives - I'm guessing you'll have bigger programs on your hard disks, as even with a 128GB SSD you'll find the space eaten up very quickly!

 

Darnit, thats what I thought you guys would say. I guess its not to big of deal really, a fresh install would do this rig good.

Thanks for the input!

 

ghost 7 (or after?) can make an image of a raid 0 array, if the array uses int 13h it works ok. if it dosen't it might work, sometimes you can get it to make an image, sometimes not. ghost is kind of flaky about raid. otherwise you can use the enterprise version of acronis, or easus which both support making images of raid arrays. of course first you would have to shrink your partition down to be smaller than the ssd you are getting. so you would need to uninstall and or delete things and use gparted or similar to shrink the partition. you always run the risk of ruining the data when resizing partitions. so yes, its possible, but probably less work to do a clean install in the end. if you do go for the clean install, theres no harm in leaving your raid array there and deleting out the windows installation. it wouldn't hurt having the array in place and using it to put the page file onto.