New SSD: Reinstall or clone old windows 7?

[Beherith]

I got a 256GB SSD, which is large enough to hold my current 2 year old windows system partition. Should I reinstall windows (and reinstall all the other hundreds of apps i have accumulated) or try to clone the old hdd to he ssd?

[dansan]

If your OS is not "sick" from bad uninstallers and registry-poo there's no reason to reinstall. You should however take a moment to find out how to align your partition properly to the SSD. It's a different "problem" than you have with 4k-drives, but the same solution, and chances are good your SSD-vendor gave you a software to partition your disk accordingly. So my suggestion is: use this partitioning software 1st, then your favorite cloning app to copy your OS into this partition without changing the partitioning schema. If all of this ins not possible - nvm, it's normally not really that big performance loss.

[Licho]

Reinstall.

[PicassoCT]

You know that the ilusion of the fast new-install, vannishes, as soon as ms get the chance to inStall all the upgraddes on your new system?
Basically windows grows, shockwave grows, everything gains weight, and demands calc()power... therefore, the magic of the re-install is a ilusion...

but sometimes, its the only way..

[very_bad_soldier]

I would also go for a fresh install (I actually did it when I bought my SSD) so you can be sure that Windows will recognize your SSD and treat it as such.
Otherwise you have to configure Windows manually to treat your SSD correctly which might be tricky. Partition alignment is not the only issue. There are also tools out there to make an existing Windows treat an SSD correctly.

[PicassoCT]

Why should window treat it diffrent in any way? Wear leveling is hardware internal... for the outside like the OS a solid state disk is like a traditional disk.. althoug alot faster.

[very_bad_soldier]

Not quite true, an SSD is not like a traditional disk.
Some stuff Windows does with normal HDDs is not needed for SSDs or will even damage them. Like Auto-Defrag for example.
Also your OS needs to activate TRIM support for SSDs.
Just to mention some. I am quite sure there is more.

[PicassoCT]

Auto defrag is off by default anyway by now. process shedulling almost eliminated that. Learned that just a month ago at university. If you have to wait for some blocks from the hdd, it doesent matter if they are sorted in a constant row anymore, because if you use the right algos, the head zickzacks over disk anyway, so if they are allover the place, doesent mean much trouble, the core just gets another process and continues with what he has in memory and cache until the dma shoves the data into the dram. So defragmentation having a influence on the overall performance is a myth. I know, i felt that pain too.

HardDrives are fascinating. And fragile.

http://static.googleusercontent.com/ext ... ilures.pdf
Enjoy.

As this information is not by me, it should be quite reliable. I only transfered data here. Dont hammer me kloot! :D

[dansan]

I'd give it a try. I mean Windows OS cannot suck that much anymore, that you cannot change the driver for a disk - lol.
Best reason for trying is: possible win-loose-ration: if it works: you win like 30h of _tedious_ app-install-and-configure-(and-crack?-)time, if it doesn't work you loose the time you needed for the cloning process... 3h maybe?
BTW: TRIM is overrated. 1st of all: just leave 1 GB unpartitioned on the SSD and the controller will use it automatically - no need for OS+fs TRIM support, 2nd: if your disks begins to decay in 2-5 years its capacity will not be worth talking about anymore - you'll already have a new PC with a 2 TB SSD.

[Beherith]

It seems like I managed to screw up the clone, so gonna default to reinstall :D

[PicassoCT]

maybee you can get a siamesian twinstall if you merge them?

[smoth]

fresh install to fix WM2 :)

[Beherith]

So after a quick reinstall, I find myself in a desolate desert of nothingness. My attempt at copying windows with gparted failed. I'm going to try to copy it with windows backup utility now :)

[PicassoCT]

OCZ? Firmware update, or sdd suicide.

[Beherith]

Samsung 470

[Beherith]

So after a ton of futile attempts, I managed to get the clone the old install to the ssd with gparted and windows system recovery. Works like a charm, incredibly fast now :)