Is it possible to ghost a HDD intall to a SSD raid?

[Ichy]

High all, new to the forums so this will be my first post.

My question is simple, at least to me. I plan to build a new ethusiast pc at the end of the month or in mid October, and I would prefer to not have to do a fresh install. I currently us a 1tb 7500 hdd for my main drive; please don't ask me why I did this its a long drawn out response, and plan to move to a 2x 64gb ssd raid settup.

Side note: Right now I bearly use 100~130 GB of the 1tb drive and would like to set it back to its purpose of being a storage drive once the new build is completed.

I have an OEM version of windows 7 installed now and understand that switching to a new MB and settup will cause in issue with microsoft. I want to potentionally avoid this by using something like Norton Ghost to ghost the OS and many of the already installed games; most noteablly FFXI (yes I still play it), from the 1tb drive to the ssd raid. Is this phesable or should I just go ahead and get in touch with mircosft and do what is necessary for the new install?

here is a link to what I'm going to be switching to: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=24435728

 

[Zenthar]

You can clone a HDD (or just a partition) to a SSD no problem, I did it before and worked flawlessly. However, you are trying numerous things at once here: cloning a single drive to a RAID array (never done that, maybe someone can tell is this is a show stopper) and you are switching motherboard (this can definitely cause problem and not just for the license).

The problem with the MB switching (would be a problem even if you were keeping the HDD BTW) is that Windows will have some drivers for your old MB installed an might try to install conflicting new ones for the new MB. The MB being the "neural system" of the PC, it can lead to lost performance and instability (if it boots at all).

BTW, any reason for the RAID, to me RAIDing SSDs can have too many downsides to be worth it, why not just get a disk twice the size (the write transfer speed is double on the 128GB version anyway and I don't know what the max transfer speed is on the controller itself if you put them in RAID)?

 

[Ichy]

at work so I have to make it quick.

I know about the MB driver problem. I planed to uninstall all current mb drivers, install the new MB drivers first, then install the new mb (I think that is the correct order any way) while still using the HDD. After ensuring boot and performance i would ghost over to the raid (if possible).

No specific reason, wanted to do a raid for long time, but couldn't afford too till recently. SSD are faster than HDD this has been proven, but a friend who works in the IT field keeps commenting on SSD in a raid being a ~100% performance increase over a single SSD. Sounds to good to be true and I figured I'd test it out, and ither way I'll still be getting more performance vs my current settup.

Thank you for your response by the way Zenthar.

 

[Zenthar]

The risk I see with RAID and SSD, is that you loose TRIM support. With the M4 you will at least still have the garbage collection, but it's not as good as TRIM. How long before performance degrades with "normal use" without TRIM, that I have no idea and I would be very curious to know.

 

[RetiredChief]

(1) Recommend a larger SSD and skip raid0. The 128 Gig SSD is faster than the 64 Gig SSD, Not a lot but still a gain.
(2) Raid0 ONLY increase Sequencial reads & writes, the LEAST important parameter for a OS + program drive. It is the small file 4K random read/writes that are important for a boot drive. Seq file speed is important for working with large files, which are normally stuck on a HDD even when a SSD is usted for the OS.
(3) As already noted you lose trim.
(4) You MOST likely will not be able to clone the single drive which probably used AHCI set in Bios. You would need to change the Bios to Raid and the drive will NOT be recognized. This is NOT like deleting a IDE driver in windows and changing the Bios from IDE to AHCI (or visa versa). Higly recommend a NEW instal. Windows will also correctly partition your drive - Partition alginment is important with a SSD.

(5) An option is to use one 64 gig SSD for only OS and programs and then the 2nd one for a "work or Scratch disk". 64 is the Min size for a Boot/program disk with the recomended being 80+ gigs.

(6) If you accidently stomped on your other MB and pitched ito the trask, you could reuse your OEM disk to install windows 7 on your new WORKING MB. You can only reuse an oem windows disk on a new system if the MB is broken, not simply being upgraded. After installation may have to call good old MS and explain that your old MB is in the trask - might leave out the stepping on LOL.

 

[Ichy]

Best answer selected by Ichy.

 

[Ichy]

Thanks RetiredChief, that answer is what i was looking for. Next question would be, from what I have on my upgrade wish list, are you saying that the 128g version is faster, or just that 128's are faster than the 64's in general.

Also, no the hdd is not ahci- didn't know it was an option till several days ago- the os is installed on IDE which was set bios as default settings. (yes the drive is a sata drive).

 

[RetiredChief]

In general the larger SSD is faster than the smaller one (ie M4 64 gig compared to 128 gig Mr).

Make sure you set bios to AHCI and disconnect any HDDs when installing windows 7. after installation is completed you can reconnect the HDD.

ALSO before installing SSD change HDDs to ahci.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/how-do-i-change-from-ide-to-ahci-for-my-hard/09a0eac7-a775-416f-b30b-219fcaab2ac9