Upgrade 512 NVME to 1TB NVME

What is the easiest / cheapest way to do this without buying anything ? I just hate having one use things laying around like my USB - SSD dongle.

idainc said:

way to do this without buying anything

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Huh? If you want a bigger drive you have to buy a bigger drive.

If you mean getting all you data onto the new drive without buying anything:
1. if your device has a secondary nvme drive slot you can install the new drive into that slot, clone the primary drive, then put the larger drive into your primary slot.
If you do not have a secondary nvme slot, you have to buy an external enclosure if you want to clone.
With either of these methods you will have to resize your partitions manually after the clone in order to utilize the extra space of larger drive.

2. My preferred method whether I have a secondary drive slot or not. I never clone and never will.
Image your existing drive, swap drives, then restore that image to the new drive. ( my backup program not only initializes and formats the new drive but also allows me to resize the partitions during the restore to utilize all the space on the larger drive.)

idainc said:

What is the easiest / cheapest way to do this without buying anything ? I just hate having one use things laying around like my USB - SSD dongle.

Click to expand...

@idainc
That's EXACTLY what I did, well . . . I cloned a 1TB NVMe drive to a 2TB NVMe drive and it was cost-effective, easy, inexpensive, and worked perfectly.
My post includes the free software to download, a video with what to do, etc.
Here is what I did, follow it and you'll be all set!
Good luck!


Enjoy!

P.S. I've cloned MANY DRIVES, and they ALWAYS work perfectly using this method.

So if I make a system image of the smaller drive and I guess boot from a USB to Macrium Reflect with the new larger drive installed it will image to old to the new ?

idainc said:

So if I make a system image of the smaller drive and I guess boot from a USB to Macrium Reflect with the new larger drive installed it will image to old to the new ?

Click to expand...

@idainc WATCH THE VIDEO IN THE LINK I POSTED. It'll show you & explain it quickly, in a few minutes.

Some people do other methods with other software, and they have problems. I haven't had any problems with this method.

Yep. You can use the tutorial below. Your disk will be new, so you won't do step 6 of this tutorial.

At step 7, just drag & drop the first 2 partitions as is from your source onto the destination disk. Then drag your OS partition onto the destination disk.
You can use the exact resize numbers as the tutorial refers to but with Macrium I find it mucher easier to drag the vertical separater bar (line) at the end of the dropped partition to increase the size. By doing it this way I never have to do all those steps after step 7.
Leave enough unallocated space at the end to accomadate your recovery partition.
You do not have to be exact in the amount of this unallocated space just so it's the same size or larger than your existing recovery partition.. Then drag your recovery partition into that space. It's ok if the recovery partition is larger on the destination. In fact, it is better. I like to assign at least 2gb to my recovery partition.
You will then see what the final partitioning will look like before you commit to it.