Disk swap and using Macrium Reflect

Hi all, I am replacing my old 512GB SSD in a Dell XPS with a 1 TB SSD. I am a new user of Macrium Reflect Personal; I have purchased it. I have had daily image backups of the Dell being successfully completed over the last week; I only do image backups as nothing really important document/data-wise is stored on the computer - it's all in the cloud. I just wanted a backup to get the laptop back to "same state" if the SSD fails or an upgrade (which is what I am doing).

I have also created a Macrium Rescue flash drive on 2 different USB flash drives, and tested booting to them - Macrium comes up fine, I see my backup images, and the network is connected. I think I verified everything up to just doing "restore".

I know I have to instruct Macrium to restore to a larger SSD, so the extra 500GB is used. I assume that will be easy to spot.

So my question is this - once I have the new SSD installed, I just boot to the Rescue Flash drive, start a Restore and ensure it will expand and use all the space on the new SSD. At that point I assume the laptop will look just like the old one except for a larger SSD (I'll test everything of course) - apps, settings, et. all the same. Is there anything else I should be aware of, any tips or things to watch out for?

Thank you for any advice you are able to share!

Awalt said:

my question is this - once I have the new SSD installed, I just boot to the Rescue Flash drive, start a Restore and ensure it will expand and use all the space on the new SSD.

Click to expand...

Yes, it is quite simple. Whether cloning or restoring you have the option resize the partitions. See here for more details.

I haven't used the backup/restore function of Macrium Reflect since I usually clone directly from the source disk to the target disk. The procedure should not be very different. Assuming you see both the source and target disk, first delete all partitions on the target disk if it is not already unallocated. Then drag and drop one by one all partitions from the source to the target in the order they appear. When you drop the Windows partition (usually the larger one) it should initially have the same size as in the source disk. Calculate how much disk space you need AFTER the Windows partition from the rest ones. Then right-click on the Windows partition and select to move/resize and change the empty space AFTER it to the calculated size. This will expand the partition but leave enough space to drag and drop the rest partitions from the source to the target. Once you have verified everything is right, click to proceed with the restore (or clone).

PS: Experience says that the restore (or clone) might not succeed with the first attempt. Verify that the target disk boots OK and your files are all intact before deleting the source. I would avoid deleting the source for some months, just in case.

Thanks @spapakons , I did plan on carefully saving the old SSD after, just in case! It works perfectly right now, it’s just smaller. And thanks for the article link @Bree !