Any computer tech experts? Cloning disk drive???

[Cuda Cody]

Ever since I went to Carlisle my laptop has been running super slooooow.  Checked all the memory and no virus or malware, so I took it to a local laptop expert.  He said one of my raid 1 drives are going bad (must have gotten bumped and happened on my flight to Carlisle).  As soon as I turned on my computer after the flight is was like 10 times slower then normal.  I've got raid 1 500 gig 7,200 rpm drives (dual drives acting as one for reliability).  I bought two new Samsung 2 tb ssd drives and need to clone the old ones on to the new ones.  Any tips?  Is this good software to use:

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Is there anything I need to do besides back everything up right before I try to clone the drive?     

[73440]

I have a couple of brothers in the computer field, one builds them and one as he says it " keeps the internet free", I will check with them.

[73440]

Brother says he uses it regularly , I asked about doing anything other than backing up and are instructions good and he said the software is fairly standard nothing crazy.
Sounds as if you follow instructions should be fine.

[Cuda Cody]

Thanks you!!!    

[73440]

Your welcome , I have to do the same to a desktop computer so will probably use the same software, if I can get that computer to download, haven't turned it on in a year.

[Aar1064]

Hey Cody, purchase and download Acronis True Image 2017. Once it's downloaded, install on another computer then create a CD rescue disc. Plug a USB drive into your laptop, insert created CD into laptop then access boot options so you can boot to CD drive. Acronis will load and allow you to choose options. Since you're using a laptop and more than likely don't have an available SATA port, you want be able to "Clone" you'll need to perform an image backup of the drive onto the USB drive.

Once image backup is complete, remove old drive and add new drive then boot to Acronis CD again with USB drive plugged in and perform a restore from image backup on USB drive.

There's really no need for redundancy with RAID 1 on a laptop IMO. Just keep it backed up.

Good luck.

[Cuda Cody]

Thank you for the tip.  I actually do have a Sata to USB cable so I'm hoping to do the direct clone route.  I was looking at Acronis and it gets good reviews too. 

If I do use the Sata cable and clone it, I should be able to insert the new hard drive once it's cloned and just start the computer like normal, right?  I was only going to image one drive and then let the raid duplicate the 2nd.  I had a drive go bad once and I inserted a new drive and it did everything to copy it over and bring the new drive up to speed.... it was super easy.  So that's why I was thinking it would work if I just imaged 1 drive and let the raid do the other one.   

[ec_co]

I would try Aomei, it supports cloning and the one you posted does not.

https://www.aomeitech.com/aomei-backupper.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3203247/software/aomei-backupper-standard-4-review.html

[Aar1064]

You should be able to use the cable to utilize the Clone feature. It's usually hit or miss depending on cable. You'll know once you're in Acronis whether or not Cloning will work. If not, just backup. Both do the same thing it only takes longer going the backup route because you'll need to restore.

Yes, Acronis backs up all partitions including the boot sector which enables you to boot to windows.

Good thing about Acronis is that you can do all of this with the created boot CD which means HD's won't have the burden of a running OS to contend with.

[mjb765]

As previously mentioned Acronis is good for cloning...but on another note--RAID 1 is a mirror (2 drives exactly the same in case one goes bad there is no data loss), so you should be able to replace the failed drive and the RAID set will rebuild the mirror to re-establish the redundancy. There is really no reason for cloning since the mirrored RAID setting has already made an exact copy of the drive.

[Cuda Cody]

That's a good point.  I thought raid 1's had to be the same drives and the same size?  Since I am going to a larger drive and moving to SSD I thought I would have to clone?  I wonder if I could just try install one new drive at a time?

As previously mentioned Acronis is good for cloning...but on another note--RAID 1 is a mirror (2 drives exactly the same in case one goes bad there is no data loss), so you should be able to replace the failed drive and the RAID set will rebuild the mirror to re-establish the redundancy. There is really no reason for cloning since the mirrored RAID setting has already made an exact copy of the drive.

[mjb765]

That's a good point.  I thought raid 1's had to be the same drives and the same size?  Since I am going to a larger drive and moving to SSD I thought I would have to clone?  I wonder if I could just try install one new drive at a time?

As previously mentioned Acronis is good for cloning...but on another note--RAID 1 is a mirror (2 drives exactly the same in case one goes bad there is no data loss), so you should be able to replace the failed drive and the RAID set will rebuild the mirror to re-establish the redundancy. There is really no reason for cloning since the mirrored RAID setting has already made an exact copy of the drive.

my bad on that..I missed that part..you could try one at a time and then expand the partition into the unallocated space..not sure how that would work....or you may need a partition manager after to expand.

[Cuda Cody]

I was looking at Intel's site and they make it sound like I can use my raid 1 to upgrade the drives.  I might give it a try!

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/technologies/intel-rapid-storage-technology-intel-rst/000005837.html

[CudaHead]

If it is running slow, I would look for the cause before I rebuilt it.
What OS are you running?
If it's windows, I could walk you through a few things to look for the problem.
Contact me if you want to try.

TopDown

[Cuda Cody]

Thank you very much for the offer.  I will take you up on it if the drive upgrade doesn't fix it.  I need to upgrade drives because I'm about 80% full right now and need more space anyways.  But if it is still slow after the drive swap, I will contact you.   

If it is running slow, I would look for the cause before I rebuilt it.
What OS are you running?
If it's windows, I could walk you through a few things to look for the problem.
Contact me if you want to try.

TopDown