m.2 nvme cloning

[hogsmaws]

hey tech gurus - i was wondering if anyone would know the best way to clone identical nvme drives. my mobo has 2 nvme slots. is installing both drives and then making a mirror raid the best way? is there an option in windows? ty

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, hogsmaws said:

hey tech gurus - i was wondering if anyone would know the best way to clone identical nvme drives. my mobo has 2 nvme slots. is installing both drives and then making a mirror raid the best way? is there an option in windows? ty

i believe you need to set it up  on yr Bios  not windows ..Windows will see it as one drive ..i think

[Guest]

If you want to use two M.2 drives as single Raid 0 or Raid 1 volume, your bios/efi must support it. And you need two identical drives.

If you want to "clone" one drive over the other, you can find some tools online, also free.

 

Cloning means you move all contents of one drive to another.

But be aware, if you "'clone" your Windows system drive, windows may require to be authenticated  again.

[hogsmaws]

4 minutes ago, CPU said:

If you want to use two M.2 drives as single Raid 0 or Raid 1 volume, your bios/efi must support it. And you need two identical drives.

If you want to "clone" one drive over the other, you can find some tools online, also free.

 

Cloning means you move all contents of one drive to another.

But be aware, if you "'clone" your Windows system drive, windows may require to be authenticated  again.

yea i'm trying to clone the drive so i can use it in a diff pc and then reauth windows with a new key. i have a SSD cloning gizmo but they have yet to make one for m.2 sticks.

[Guest]

m.2 is actually a SSD with a different controller (it uses a PCIe controller and not a SATA controller)

So the other gizmos should work just fine.

[hogsmaws]

27 minutes ago, CPU said:

m.2 is actually a SSD with a different controller (it uses a PCIe controller and not a SATA controller)

So the other gizmos should work just fine.

not sure how to get m.2 sticks to sit in this STARTECH DOCK

[Guest]

No. You can't. These are not for M.2

You can use a software solution to clone a M.2 to a similar drive.

be aware you need to run it in a special way (the dest drive not mounted and with high level rights (admin) to read the source by logical blocks)

[hogsmaws]

8 minutes ago, CPU said:

No. You can't. These are not for M.2

You can use a software solution to clone a M.2 to a similar drive.

be aware you need to run it in a special way (the dest drive not mounted and with high level rights (admin) to read the source by logical blocks)

yea i've been looking for similar ones for m.2 but they don't exist.

[Pauduan]

You can use something like this: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-2-5in-Adapter-Converter-SAT32M225/dp/B00ITJ7U20

 

I still don't get what you're trying to do.

 

Do you want to run two drives together in one PC, or clone the OS and move to another PC?

 

Macrium Reflect will allow you to clone a running OS onto any other drive, including one that already has a filesystem. When you run the new drive it will be identical to the master, in that you will need to switch the key if the OS is windows. I had a laptop with a slow 64GB eMMC and used Reflect to move to a 240gig m.2 drive, for s quick speed and capacity upgrade. I didn't switch the key as it was basically the same machine, and I disabled the MMC just in case.

 

Worked out a treat.

[Antrox]

On 8/26/2019 at 1:52 PM, CPU said:

If you want to use two M.2 drives as single Raid 0 or Raid 1 volume, your bios/efi must support it. And you need two identical drives.

If you want to "clone" one drive over the other, you can find some tools online, also free.

 

Cloning means you move all contents of one drive to another.

But be aware, if you "'clone" your Windows system drive, windows may require to be authenticated  again.

Im pretty sure cloning isnt just the contents. Cloning actually makes an exact copy of the drive including certain occupied sectors of it, which make it usable. For example if you want to clone a 1tb drive to something like a 2tb drive, once the process is done the 2tb drive will be 1tb and the unallocated section will be a separate partition in which you combine later. 

As for windows needing to be authenticated again. This is false since the clone will be exactly like the original, this includes every single registry and windows file. You will never have to re-authenticate windows unless you actually change the motherboard in which windows was originally activated and installed on. The real problem, however, is that if you clone raid drives your OS is configured expecting a raid so it might not boot, plus physically spinning drives to electronic memory drives like an SSD arent really optimal. Partition alignment may also not be optimal when you restore an image or clone to a solid state drive, and the performance will be negatively affected, so keep that in mind.

 

If you're cloning an HDD to an SSD and you have a samsung use their migration program since thats what it is designed for. Otherwise Macrium usually does general cloning of HDD or SSD the best.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Antrox said:

Im pretty sure cloning isnt just the contents. Cloning actually makes an exact copy of the drive including certain occupied sectors of it, which make it usable. For example if you want to clone a 1tb drive to something like a 2tb drive, once the process is done the 2tb drive will be 1tb and the unallocated section will be a separate partition in which you combine later. 

As for windows needing to be authenticated again. This is false since the clone will be exactly like the original. You will never have to re-authenticate windows unless you actually change the motherboard in which windows was originally activated and installed on. The real problem, however, is that if you clone raid drives your OS is configured expecting a raid, plus physically spinning drives. Partition alignment may not be optimal when you restore the image to a solid state drive, and the performance will be negatively affected, so keep that in mind.

 

If you're cloning an HDD to an SSD and you have a samsung use their migration program since thats what it is designed for. Otherwise Macrium usually does general cloning of HDD or SSD the best.

Cloning works in 2 ways. One safe one unsafe.

The safe one is if the two drives share the same memory model (how sectors are arranged), the unsafe one is all other cases.

In the first case you can literally replicate sectors. In the other one you need to take care of the file system and the partition type.

 

[Antrox]

11 minutes ago, CPU said:

Cloning works in 2 ways. One safe one unsafe.

The safe one is if the two drives share the same memory model (how sectors are arranged), the unsafe one is all other cases.

In the first case you can literally replicate sectors. In the other one you need to take care of the file system and the partition type.

 

I wouldn't recommend cloning a HDD to an SSD because of how differently they work you risk reducing its performance, not only that it might not even boot. If you do however go along with it use the right tool.

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, Antrox said:

I wouldn't recommend cloning a HDD to an SSD because of how differently they work you risk reducing its performance, not only that it might not even boot. If you do however go along with it use the right tool.

Correct.

I would not recommend also to clone a SSD of a size to another SSD of a different size.

[hogsmaws]

i am trying to clone an exact same nvme to another (same make and model). the purpose is to setup a second pc with the exact same components without having to install all the software from scratch. i will just have to install a new windows activation key.

[hogsmaws]

update:

 

I got this:

USB NVME

 

and am about to use Clonezilla to clone drive 1 to the new drive.

 

all this just to mimic my nexus mod manager install... sigh.

 

[PcNerd]

You’ve probably done it already, but just for other users...

 

If your motherboard has a 2nd M.2 slot (and it is accessible) use that, otherwise get a pcie - M.2 adapter.

They are cheap, easy to obtain and reliable (since they are pretty much passive adapters)

 

Windows 10 (and I think 7 too) has an “add mirror-drive” option in the drive manager, its like a software based raid 1, it can be useful in cases when the mobo doesn't have a raid driver. (It may not work on existing partitions)

 

For your purpose, I would use https://partedmagic.com or something similar (partition manager / boot drive)

 

I could be wrong on this, but I think cloning apps are simply making a bit-copy of the file system (including the partition table and index table)

The memory mapping and everything like that is controlled by the onboard controller and it is pretty much self contained / inaccessible from the outside. (therefore cloning the drives should be safe)

 

The only down sides I know:

- It mirrors file system fragmentation (small performance loss compared to a brand new install)

- Corrupted files will be mirrored over too. (can be useful)

- If the old drive fails during the process, you can potentially loose all the data.

 

I never had any problems cloning drives (so far)

Since it’s a heavy-use situation, make sure your drives won’t overheat during the process!

[hogsmaws]

yep it worked. clonezilla is pretty awesome. all i have to do now is but another license key for win10 and basically that's it. up and running.