Moving a OS image onto a different size hard drive

[ArkiStan]

I'm currently using Windows 7 Home Professional. I want to take an image of the OS and copy it over onto another hard drive with a differeny partition size. What is the best way to do this so I don't have to reinstall the OS?

(The old one is a 7200rpm hard drive and I want to transplant the OS onto a 10000rpm hard drive for better speed)

[Devhux]

If your current OS drive is smaller, then any imaging program would do (I like Acronis True Image myself). If the drive/OS partition in question is larger than the destination drive though, you'll probably need to resize it down first. Whatever you do, don't rely on Windows 7's image function (I've rarely had it work for me).

On a different note, I'm guessing you are looking at a Velociraptor (unless of course you have SCSI drives). I still question whether it's worth it to go to a Raptor at this point in time. Even if you ignore the SSD craze, the latest Velociraptor came out two years ago, and newer 7200rpm drives have much higher aerial density which would lessen the speed advantage a Raptor would give. Most newer drives now also have more cache memory as well, which would give them a speed boost.

[InfiniteNothing]

I read an article that said if you only used the last 150GB of a current gen 1-2TB drive, you'd get better or equal to the transfer rate of a raptor. Of course, the seek time would be a bit slower.

[Jeffbx]

That works only if you physically limit access to the first 300GB of the drive - http://www.techwarelabs.com/seagate_1-5tb-mod/all/1/ Partitioning won't work, since any access to the rest of the drive will offset the performance gains.

The Velociraptor is still the fastest SATA drive out there, but the higher density disks are quite a bit cheaper, so you can get close to Raptor performance for less $$.

For the same cost, I'd still pick the raptor. But for the difference in cost ($199 vs. $119), I might just mod a 1.5TB today.

[ArkiStan]

If your current OS drive is smaller, then any imaging program would do (I like Acronis True Image myself). If the drive/OS partition in question is larger than the destination drive though, you'll probably need to resize it down first. Whatever you do, don't rely on Windows 7's image function (I've rarely had it work for me).

On a different note, I'm guessing you are looking at a Velociraptor (unless of course you have SCSI drives). I still question whether it's worth it to go to a Raptor at this point in time. Even if you ignore the SSD craze, the latest Velociraptor came out two years ago, and newer 7200rpm drives have much higher aerial density which would lessen the speed advantage a Raptor would give. Most newer drives now also have more cache memory as well, which would give them a speed boost.

In fact, the raptor drive is from 4 years ago (74GB model) and the current HDD is a more modern drive (640GB 7200RPM SATA II, 16MB Cache), which came with the (rather cheapo) computer i just bought last october. Do you think the difference may be negligible? If so I don't think i'll go through the trouble. It's not like it feels slow right now.

[InfiniteNothing]

Oh, a last gen Raptor... yeah, I'd think it would be negligible except for seek time which will be better on the raptor.

[ArkiStan]

If your current OS drive is smaller, then any imaging program would do (I like Acronis True Image myself). If the drive/OS partition in question is larger than the destination drive though, you'll probably need to resize it down first. Whatever you do, don't rely on Windows 7's image function (I've rarely had it work for me).

On a different note, I'm guessing you are looking at a Velociraptor (unless of course you have SCSI drives). I still question whether it's worth it to go to a Raptor at this point in time. Even if you ignore the SSD craze, the latest Velociraptor came out two years ago, and newer 7200rpm drives have much higher aerial density which would lessen the speed advantage a Raptor would give. Most newer drives now also have more cache memory as well, which would give them a speed boost.

for a moment i was like, who is this dude that has over 2000 posts but i've never heard of before? then i saw your sig. haha. :shakehand