Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

[canadaboy25]

Hey guys, looking to upgrade my Windows 10 system drive among a few other things and have a few questions for you guys.

So my system is getting a little tired out and needs a couple upgrades. The motherboard is an ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 with an AMD FX-8350 CPU and 16GB of DDR3 memory. The motherboard has... heh... been hit by lightning before. Windows 10 is running on a 128GB Sandisk SSD which is about 5GB from being full at all times. I have 2 RAID 1 Arrays - one 1TB and one 2TB. So a total of 4 data hard drives. I have all of my programs minus firefox on the 1TB array. So that means it is basically just Windows hogging my SSD. The motherboard has 5 SATA ports and 2 "special" SATA ports that are only usable for data drives. You can't use them for RAID and you can't boot from them. So I have my DVD drive plugged into one of them.

My plan is to buy 2 more 128GB SSD's and set them up with the other SSD as RAID 5 and put Windows 10 on it. That will give me 256GB of space and some redundancy so if a drive kicks off I don't have to reinstall windows and set everything back up. Doing this will mean I have to buy a RAID card and move one array to the card. I was looking at buying this IOCrest card. https://www.amazon.ca/IOCrest-SI-PEX...B3%2Braid&th=1

To do this I will have to either clone Windows to another drive, set up my SSD array, then clone windows to it. Or, make and image of Windows, set up my SSD array, then restore the image to the array. Does anyone know how kindly Windows 10 takes to this kind of thing?

I will also have to find a way to migrate my 2TB array to the new RAID card. I don't believe my current RAID controller allows an array to be set up without losing all of the data on the drives so I'm not sure how to deal with that. I could probably copy all the data to about 7 other drives I have and it would possibly fit, but that's a pain in the neck. So if anyone has any tips or tricks about how to do this easier it would be appreciated.

So yeah, any feedback, tips, or criticism are welcome.

Here's the story of the lightning "incident" if anyone's interested.
I have my tower and monitors plugged into the surge outlets of a dead APC UPS and my ethernet runs through the surge protector too. Well there was a pretty nasty storm outside so naturally I was using the computer . Long story short, there was a flash of lightning and thunder so loud the windows rattled. The moment the lightning and thunder hit, the power went out and I heard a small explosion inside my case. Sounded like about 10 fuses popping at once. I waited for the power to come back on and tried booting her up but just a black screen. After about 10 attempts I saw the BIOS screen flash and then it went out and the motherboard spit out a beep code. At this point I was slightly frustrated and smacked the case "quite firmly". Tried powering on a few more times and finally it booted. I was in the middle of watching a youtube video so I loaded it back up and put my headphones on. The only sound that came out was a steady popping. Didn't matter whether the system was trying to play sounds or not. It was then I realized that my desktop speakers were plugged directly into the mains and a surge must've traveled through the speakers and into the onboard audio on the motherboard through the audio wire. So I installed an old soundblaster card from the early 2000's and it's been working great ever since. I actually prefer this old card because it has the panel that fits in a 5.25" bay with all the different audio connections and volume ports on it. It is a beige panel in a black case though. Adds contrast

[Per Hansson]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

Just buy a Samsung 850 EVO and be done with it.
It's not like you Frankenstein build will be more reliable or perform even close to it.

[stj]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

you should start by upgrading to Linux and/or windows7

the spyware indexer in win10 is probably thrashing the life out of that drive.

[canadaboy25]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

Just buy a Samsung 850 EVO and be done with it.
It's not like you Frankenstein build will be more reliable or perform even close to it.

I'm not just putting in a single SSD. I want some data redundancy. This is a Windows 8.1 to 10 upgrade OS so if I lose it I'm screwed because I never had a Windows 10 product key. Also, I don't know how a single SSD solution would make it any less of a Frankenstein build. I would still have my cooked motherboard. Performance is less of a factor than cost. I'm not shelling out the cash to buy a whole new system when my current one still functions good enough for my uses. Would just be nice to have a few upgrades. I was just looking for some advice on setting up and transferring RAID arrays and system partitions.

you should start by upgrading to Linux and/or windows7

the spyware indexer in win10 is probably thrashing the life out of that drive.

I have a laptop running Linux and I would never try and suffer through it on my main workstation. Let me know once you can install Solidworks and SolidCam and all of the required drivers on Linux and have them function properly. Or any other programs such as Altium Designer, AutoCad, Sketchup. I need a system that will reliably run all the programs I need for work without having to use a version of the software that is 20 versions out of date. Some people have the patience and knowledge to make new, specialized software work with Linux, but I do not. I need something that works and supports the latest versions of the programs I use. As far as I care Windows can "spy" on anything I use my PC for and it won't bother me. There is nothing on my computer that I wouldn't want someone seeing so Windows 7 offers no advantage to me.

And to do with disk usage, my drive light flicks once every 20 seconds. That seems quite acceptable to me.

Once again was just looking for advice for the easiest way to move my partitions and arrays. I don't plan on buying a new system any time soon.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

Here are notes on doing a storage driver switch on Windows 10, I have tried it with Server 2016 successfully:

Change IDE, AHCI, RAID driver:
Open Admin command prompt: bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal
Restart to BIOS and set to AHCI
Restart. Windows will boot into safe mode and will update the driver.
Open Admin command prompt: bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot
Restart to boot Windows Normally.

Btw: your Win10 license is stored in the cloud.
You can reinstall and it should activate automatically when you go online.

[diif]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

RAID with consumer grade SSDs is not the best idea. Excessive writes and a shortened lifespan. Are you backing up ?

[CapLeaker]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

you should start by upgrading to Linux and/or windows7

the spyware indexer in win10 is probably thrashing the life out of that drive.

x 2. I am running Crucial MX300 and 850 pro's on a few linux distros and don't look back. The only one single thing I still need windows 7 is for the remote control / programming of an alarm system.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

Hey guys, looking to upgrade my Windows 10 system drive among a few other things and have a few questions for you guys.

So my system is getting a little tired out and needs a couple upgrades. The motherboard is an ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 with an AMD FX-8350 CPU and 16GB of DDR3 memory. The motherboard has... heh... been hit by lightning before. Windows 10 is running on a 128GB Sandisk SSD which is about 5GB from being full at all times. I have 2 RAID 1 Arrays - one 1TB and one 2TB. So a total of 4 data hard drives. I have all of my programs minus firefox on the 1TB array. So that means it is basically just Windows hogging my SSD. The motherboard has 5 SATA ports and 2 "special" SATA ports that are only usable for data drives. You can't use them for RAID and you can't boot from them. So I have my DVD drive plugged into one of them.

My plan is to buy 2 more 128GB SSD's and set them up with the other SSD as RAID 5 and put Windows 10 on it. That will give me 256GB of space and some redundancy so if a drive kicks off I don't have to reinstall windows and set everything back up. Doing this will mean I have to buy a RAID card and move one array to the card. I was looking at buying this IOCrest card. https://www.amazon.ca/IOCrest-SI-PEX...B3%2Braid&th=1

To do this I will have to either clone Windows to another drive, set up my SSD array, then clone windows to it. Or, make and image of Windows, set up my SSD array, then restore the image to the array. Does anyone know how kindly Windows 10 takes to this kind of thing?

I will also have to find a way to migrate my 2TB array to the new RAID card. I don't believe my current RAID controller allows an array to be set up without losing all of the data on the drives so I'm not sure how to deal with that. I could probably copy all the data to about 7 other drives I have and it would possibly fit, but that's a pain in the neck. So if anyone has any tips or tricks about how to do this easier it would be appreciated.

So yeah, any feedback, tips, or criticism are welcome.

Here's the story of the lightning "incident" if anyone's interested.
I have my tower and monitors plugged into the surge outlets of a dead APC UPS and my ethernet runs through the surge protector too. Well there was a pretty nasty storm outside so naturally I was using the computer . Long story short, there was a flash of lightning and thunder so loud the windows rattled. The moment the lightning and thunder hit, the power went out and I heard a small explosion inside my case. Sounded like about 10 fuses popping at once. I waited for the power to come back on and tried booting her up but just a black screen. After about 10 attempts I saw the BIOS screen flash and then it went out and the motherboard spit out a beep code. At this point I was slightly frustrated and smacked the case "quite firmly". Tried powering on a few more times and finally it booted. I was in the middle of watching a youtube video so I loaded it back up and put my headphones on. The only sound that came out was a steady popping. Didn't matter whether the system was trying to play sounds or not. It was then I realized that my desktop speakers were plugged directly into the mains and a surge must've traveled through the speakers and into the onboard audio on the motherboard through the audio wire. So I installed an old soundblaster card from the early 2000's and it's been working great ever since. I actually prefer this old card because it has the panel that fits in a 5.25" bay with all the different audio connections and volume ports on it. It is a beige panel in a black case though. Adds contrast

Disable System Restore, found in the classic control panel. And IIRC, it probably will get re-enabled after a Windows 10 update. So just repeat the same thing to clear it and don't forget to at least use the built-in disk cleanup to remove previous versions of Windows, which usually just means previous builds!
Additionally, Windows 10 seems to sometimes randomly re-enable System Restore!

Sound card from the early-2000s? I would guess a SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 or the like. Most likely an Emu 10K1.

I don't think it was until the mid-2000s, before the non-Emu 10K ones started flooding the market with possibly bullshit advertising as well...

[lti]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

I have a laptop running Linux and I would never try and suffer through it on my main workstation. Let me know once you can install Solidworks and SolidCam and all of the required drivers on Linux and have them function properly. Or any other programs such as Altium Designer, AutoCad, Sketchup.

That's why stj mentioned Windows 7 instead of only Linux. The "switch to Linux" people also annoy me for the same reason. There are a lot of people who think that the only programs that don't run on Linux are Photoshop and games. (Strangely, there aren't a lot of people who say that Gimp is equivalent to Photoshop.)

[canadaboy25]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

Here are notes on doing a storage driver switch on Windows 10, I have tried it with Server 2016 successfully:

Change IDE, AHCI, RAID driver:
Open Admin command prompt: bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal
Restart to BIOS and set to AHCI
Restart. Windows will boot into safe mode and will update the driver.
Open Admin command prompt: bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot
Restart to boot Windows Normally.

Btw: your Win10 license is stored in the cloud.
You can reinstall and it should activate automatically when you go online.

If I am just changing the RAID level and not the actual controller, is it still necessary to change the driver?

I have my Windows 10 license linked to my Microsoft account. So does this mean I can reinstall Windows, skip the product key, log into my Microsoft account, and then it should be activated? If so that makes my life a lot easier.

RAID with consumer grade SSDs is not the best idea. Excessive writes and a shortened lifespan. Are you backing up ?

The lifespan doesn't worry me that much. Once these ones kick off I will probably want bigger drives anyways. All the drives will be different brands so they should all die at different times. The RAID 5 will let me shift in new drives as required. I do an OS drive backup every once in a while. I use AOMEI backup. Not sure if this even proves anything to be honest because I don't know how I would restore my system from its image.

Disable System Restore, found in the classic control panel. And IIRC, it probably will get re-enabled after a Windows 10 update. So just repeat the same thing to clear it and don't forget to at least use the built-in disk cleanup to remove previous versions of Windows, which usually just means previous builds!
Additionally, Windows 10 seems to sometimes randomly re-enable System Restore!

Sound card from the early-2000s? I would guess a SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 or the like. Most likely an Emu 10K1.

I don't think it was until the mid-2000s, before the non-Emu 10K ones started flooding the market with possibly bullshit advertising as well...

Are these steps supposed to free up drive space or..?

It's a Creative Soundblaster Live SB0060. Could very well be mid-2000's, I have no idea. All I know is that it is old. I really like this card. The 5.25" bay panel with the 6.35mm audio jacks and volume knobs are very convenient to use.

That's why stj mentioned Windows 7 instead of only Linux. The "switch to Linux" people also annoy me for the same reason. There are a lot of people who think that the only programs that don't run on Linux are Photoshop and games. (Strangely, there aren't a lot of people who say that Gimp is equivalent to Photoshop.)

It has taken me 3 years to weed out all the annoying "features" of windows 10 that I don't like and to customize all my shortcuts and hotkeys just the way I like. It would be exhausting to try and set it all up on windows 7. Also, lets face it, Windows 7 is getting older as the days pass. It will be obsolete and unsupported by many new specialty programs and drivers long before Windows 10 will be. If I ever bite the bullet and go through all of the effort to change operating systems, I won't be changing to an older one.

I agree about the switch to Linux statement. As much as the Linux fanboys hate to admit it, there are many programs that just will not run on Linux. If they do, it isn't very smoothly. I realize Altium designer and Solidworks/SolidCam are not requirements for the majority of people, but they are for me. More the reason that I will be sticking with Windows 10. (I also happen to like the full-screen start menu page)

[diif]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

Backups aren't backups if they are not tested.
It proves if you don't know how to restore from it that it's not the ideal/correct solution.
I would not use RAID 5 for an OS, RAID 1 if anything.
Or use a single SSD and do a full disk backup to another SSD or RAID 1 and backup to a single SSD.

[stj]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

i would be tempted to try those programs on Linux,
but i stopped when i read AutoCad.
i want NOTHING to do with Autodesk products.
anybody that uses software that insists on a net connection for constant "validation" and probably spying is asking for a world of pain one day.

i refuse to touch anything with the words "cloud" or "online validation" linked to them!

[Per Hansson]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

If I am just changing the RAID level and not the actual controller, is it still necessary to change the driver?

Should not be, but depends on the controller manufacturer of course.
That aside using RAID5 for SSD's is unwise because most are too slow so they will bottleneck the SSD with their XOR calculations...

I have my Windows 10 license linked to my Microsoft account. So does this mean I can reinstall Windows, skip the product key, log into my Microsoft account, and then it should be activated? If so that makes my life a lot easier

Yup

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

Are these steps supposed to free up drive space or..?

Yes, it's for freeing up a ton of drive space. Windows 10 is a drive space glutton!

[eccerr0r]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

i would be tempted to try those programs on Linux,
but i stopped when i read AutoCad.
i want NOTHING to do with Autodesk products.
anybody that uses software that insists on a net connection for constant "validation" and probably spying is asking for a world of pain one day.

i refuse to touch anything with the words "cloud" or "online validation" linked to them!

And there's also FlexLM/FNP... ugh.
Maybe I'm just too fossy now.

[stj]

Re: Windows 10 SSD Migration and Upgrade

FlexLM was easy to hack though.