Anyone used Samsung's migration utility?

[Mitsu3000gt]

I'm wondering if any of you have used Samsung's migration utility that comes with their SSD's. As best I can tell, it provides you with an easy tool to move the OS (W10) from an old drive to the new SSD.

Has anyone used this? Is it really easy with low risk?

I want to replace my 256GB Crucial M4 with a 512GB Samsung 850 because they are dirt cheap, a lot faster, and I need more space. This seems like it would make it really easy.

Clean installing W10 on the new drive given that I already have a legit license copy of W10 up and running on the existing drive sounds like it would be a major pain.

It also comes with Samsung magician but I believe that is more for firmware and benchmarking.

[sabad66]

yep, used it when i upgraded my laptop's m.2 SSD

I bought an m.2 enclosure, put the new drive in there, ran the utility to copy the entire existing drive over, shut it down, replaced the drive in the laptop then booted up.

No issues at all.

[schocker]

The samsung software is awesome. Have used it 3-4 times now and it has worked flawlessly each time.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Sweet, thanks guys. Sounds like it makes it really easy.

It JUST moves over windows though right? So I will have to get every single little driver again? Like Ethernet, sound, etc. and all the other super annoying ones? Or will it bring them over? I always have an impossible time finding all those little drivers, so that would be a deterrent for sure.

[sabad66]

No, it will take an exact image of the drive so that includes the drivers and everything.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by sabad66
No, it will take an exact image of the drive so that includes the drivers and everything.

That is awesome, thanks. Should be super easy then.

I did read from multiple sources though that it only takes windows and nothing else - could I be confusing it with something else? I don't expect it to take my installed applications with it, but as long as it does in fact keep the drivers intact I'll be happy.

The other thing I read about is setting the drive to allocate ~10% for overwrite - is that something I should do and do I do it before or after I clone?

[jacky4566]

Why not start fresh? Windows gets bloated and slow as the registry gets bigger and windows leaves it damn installer files everywhere.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by jacky4566
Why not start fresh? Windows gets bloated and slow as the registry gets bigger and windows leaves it damn installer files everywhere.

How do I start fresh with only one licensed copy of W10, and one computer? If there is an easy way to do it I may go that route as well otherwise I think I'll be satisfied with a clone. I didn't think it was like the good ol' days with windows XP where you just put in the CD but I could be wrong. I also don't want to go driver hunting, I refuse to do that haha.

[revelations]

Originally posted by jacky4566
Why not start fresh? Windows gets bloated and slow as the registry gets bigger and windows leaves it damn installer files everywhere.

I would say that is an outdated view of how W7< works. Reg cleaners dont really make that much difference in my experience. Its the apps that load at startup that slow things down, esp at boot.

Im running a 5 year old W7 build as my main rig and its not slow at all even with the hundreds of old apps that i've used and unused. Running an SSD.