How do I upgrade my boot drive? (250GB Drive Upgrading to 1TB Drive)

[GhostieBoy]

When I built my PC, I foolishly made my boot drive 250GB. I didnt realize just how impossible it would be to keep my boot drive from filling up with random stuff. It seems like even if I don't install anything to my boot drive, it still has pointers and background data that is stored there and it gets full QUICKLY. Seems like every few months I am going in and playing the "what useless stuff can I get rid of" game. Virtual machines, pictures, videos, emptying my downloads folder, etc. And it is just getting so infuriating.

 

So I want to swap out my 250GB M.2 SATA SSD with a 1TB M.2 NVME

 

What is the best way to go about doing that that will give me the most seamless experience possible? I have a Samsung 980 pro sitting on my desk currently, I just don't know what to do. I've seen drive cloning devices, is that the best way? is there some way to do it as far as software goes? Or is it built into windows?

 

I know its a big ask, but any IN DEPTH instructions/videos/explanations would be preferred as this seems like a rather high risk thing, so I would prefer it to be idiot proof (its me, im the idiot  )

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

[BiotechBen]

I've cloned using Macrium Reflect, which is straightforward as long as you read the directions. Then used AOMEI partition assistant to extend the portion to the size of the full drive. (I'd recommend moving the recovery portion to the front first, and do it in pre-boot environment instead of the windows built-in environment.) 

[RONOTHAN##]

8 minutes ago, GhostieBoy said:

I've seen drive cloning devices, is that the best way?

If you want it to be seamless (as in you turn on the system and everything was right where you left it, just with 4x the storage), then yes, drive cloning software is the way to go. 

 

9 minutes ago, GhostieBoy said:

is there some way to do it as far as software goes? Or is it built into windows?

There's dozens of drive cloning utilities out there. The one I usually go for is called Clonezilla, which runs off a USB flash drive, while some other people prefer something like Macron Reflect or Samsung Magician, both pieces of software that can run in Windows. 

 

11 minutes ago, GhostieBoy said:

as this seems like a rather high risk thing

It really isn't. The only thing mildly risky would be if you accidentally tried to clone the 1TB drive to the 250GB, but there are plenty of safeguards to in most software to prevent something like that from happening. Cloning software won't touch anything that is on your 250GB drive, it will just make a bit for bit copy of all of it. It's for the most part designed to be pretty intuitive, where you just say what kind of clone you want to do (drive to drive, drive to file, file to drive, drive to backup server, etc.), what the source drive is (the drive that the data is being cloned from), what the target drive is (where the data is being cloned to), and a couple extra options like whether you want to expand the drive partitions automatically. 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, GhostieBoy said:

When I built my PC, I foolishly made my boot drive 250GB. I didnt realize just how impossible it would be to keep my boot drive from filling up with random stuff. It seems like even if I don't install anything to my boot drive, it still has pointers and background data that is stored there and it gets full QUICKLY. Seems like every few months I am going in and playing the "what useless stuff can I get rid of" game. Virtual machines, pictures, videos, emptying my downloads folder, etc. And it is just getting so infuriating.

 

So I want to swap out my 250GB M.2 SATA SSD with a 1TB M.2 NVME

 

What is the best way to go about doing that that will give me the most seamless experience possible? I have a Samsung 980 pro sitting on my desk currently, I just don't know what to do. I've seen drive cloning devices, is that the best way? is there some way to do it as far as software goes? Or is it built into windows?

 

I know its a big ask, but any IN DEPTH instructions/videos/explanations would be preferred as this seems like a rather high risk thing, so I would prefer it to be idiot proof (its me, im the idiot  )

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

You should look into what is filling it up. I've been using the same windows install on a 250gb drive for 5 years and am only using 120gb of it. If you are installing programs onto a secondary drive, your boot drive should not be filling up.

[GhostieBoy]

On 3/7/2024 at 2:24 AM, Blue4130 said:

You should look into what is filling it up. I've been using the same windows install on a 250gb drive for 5 years and am only using 120gb of it. If you are installing programs onto a secondary drive, your boot drive should not be filling up.

I think what's causing it is lots of game files. Like I know for a fact minecraft curse forge I'd storing mods on my boot drive (even tho I'm 99% sure I told it not to initially, I just think thats how it works). I play a large rotation of games, so I think they all just have ties to the drive in some way

 

BUT, I may be wrong (and probably am)

 

I've scoured the folders and drive a lot to try and figure out what is filling it. I usually clear a bunch of stuff out when it happens and that works for a few months. But some things I am unsure what they are, so I don't delete them out of fear something will get messed up. Idk bit of an irrational fear.

 

I'm reasonably certain it isn't malware or anything as I know that can typically fill a drive randomly from my university classes (cyber security degree). So I'm not worried about it in that sense.

 

But I'll try and do some more investigating