Do I need third party cloning software to replicate my existing hard drive onto a new SSD drive or can I use something from Windows disk management ?

It’s a desktop PCs with plenty of spare slots and just has Windows, Office 16, Citrix and Zwift on the drive all media is on another disk that’s staying.

I did this on a Mac recently without much trouble but most online PC articles seem to suggest I need some additional software. Any help appreciated.

Must admit, I’d install as new on the new SSD and reinstall those few programmes

I’m no IT expert though

I bought a Samsung SSD for which Samsung supply free cloning software. It was a breeze. I guess other manufacturers will have similar.

You can clone the disk, but I’d probably just do a fresh install and re-install the apps. Ninite.com is handy for installing the everyday apps that you’ll need alongside Windows.

Thanks, Ninite looks useful although in this particular machine there are very few apps.

My concern with a fresh install is getting all the drivers for the pc and never ending updates for windows and office again. It seemed simpler to just boot from a copy but perhaps not. I’ll just have a faff and see what happens. ta

ending updates for windows

Just download the latest version of Windows and connect to a network during the installation and that is taken care of.

Definitely no reason to go through the hassle of a fresh install and I’ve switched from hdd to cloned ssd on lots of desktops. Cloning works at block level rather than file level meaning it’s very quick to do, when the OS first realises it has a new disk it’ll want a reboot but that’s just about it. The only hassle is if you ever need to flatten everything and perform a factory restore the recovery partition may realise it’s not the original disk but you can always perform the restore on the original disk and clone it again. Most ssd ship with cloning software such as Acronis.

If it did not come with any cloning software you can use a Linux boot DVD or USB to use the DD command to clone a disk.

If you do clone, when it’s all up and running again start a command prompt as ‘Admin’ and run:

winsat disk

to force Windows to recheck the disk, which then reconfigures the optimisation routines. That’ll disable the defrag optimisations that will be enabled if your cloning from a spinny hard disk, and enable TRIM/wear levelling type routines instead.

You probably know this, but never ever defrag an SSD. No point (it’s not mechanical) and all it’ll do is wear out the SSD faster.