Copying factory load SSD to ultrabay HD

I'm ordering a T530 with a factory-loaded 180gb SSD drive as my primary/boot drive. I plan to install a large aftermarket HD in the ultrabay for my user files and data. (I know it's a little more expensive to do it this way, but there are convenience and warranty factors that make sense to me.)

It occurs to me that I might also be able to use this ultrabay HD as:

(a) a bootable rescue medium, akin to but instead of recovery disks, in case the SSD crashes; and/or

(b) a place to back-up the SSD periodically.

However, I literally have no experience with R&R, backing up, cloning or any form of mass copying. I have read several posts here where people do the "copy" in the other direction -- from a factory-loaded HD to an aftermarket SSD, which is then put in the primary bay. But I also read of a lot of problems in the process, which I don't understand. I don't know whether my reverse process presents the same or different issues.

Anyway, are (a) and/or (b) possible?

If so, what's the easiest way for a noob to do them? I could do the initial R&R copy, it it's possible, when the system is brand new and untinkered with if that's helpful. It will be Windows 8 if that's relevant.

 

Hi Kilt,

Everything you ask is possible.

First let me put to bed any fears or concerns you have about cloning from a factory image to a SSD, there is nothing to worry about. Cloning a HDD to SSD or the other way around is easy and safe when done with the right software. All the typical consumer needs to check is that the drive they are cloning to, is large enough to fit the used portion of the partitions being cloned.

For example, if you have a factory 500GB HDD with only 1 partition: Say your C: drive is 500GB in size but only 50GB of that 500GB is currently being used. The SSD you are cloning to is 250GB in size. In this case you would have no issues because even though the partition you are cloning is 500GB in size, only 50GB of it is used, which will easily fit in the 250GB SSD and using the correct tools like Acronis you can resize the partition to fit onto the 250GB SSD during the restore process.

If you have the above covered you can clone in any direction you want.


For you (a) scenario you could easily take a clone of the SSD image when it's brand new, using something like Acronis True Image 2013 + Plus Pack. It will clone your whole disk with all the partitions on it and normally compress 50GB of used space down to a 25GB clone image. You can store this on your secondary caddy HDD. If ever anything was to happen to your SSD, you can use the recovery USB media that you create using Acronis to restore your factory image. You would boot using the USB stick that has your Acronis Recovery media, this is basically a bootable image of Acronis. Once it has loaded you simply point to the saved cloned image of your SSD that you made earlier and recover it to whatever new SSD you have purchased to replace the faulty one.

Once the process is done which normally takes about 15min, you will be back up and running with a brand new factory image.

For your (b) scenario, that is also easy to do. You simply use Acronis to backup your SSD periodically to your UltraBay HDD.

Many people including myself don't even leave Acronis installed on the system once the USB recovery media has been created. I find it just as easy to keep that USB stick in a safe place and simply boot from it whenever I need to do, backups, clones or restores. Like I mentioned before, it's basically the Acronis program on a stick. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles like scheduled backups etc that the Windows install has but it also takes no resources on your system and has all the important features that you need.

I find it's best practice to have at least two complete clones of my OS drive. The 1st is a copy of the drive after the first boot, when everything is new and untouched. The 2nd is a copy of the drive once you have everything just the way you like it. This does not normally include installed games that can be re-installed in no time, but normally frequently used core applications like your , Anti-Virus, Media Players, iTunes, MS Office, Web Browser, Windows updates etc all setup the way you like it with your personalized settings. Basically the core applications you would use from day to day. I keep these two images in a safe place. If I was to restore for whatever reason I would normally try and restore to my 2nd image, the customized one. I would only restore to the factory image if I was selling the computer or sending it back for warranty etc and I didn't want people having access to my applications.

 

Flickster, thank you. Your reply prompts further questions.

I do have fears about cloning not only because of my personal computer ineptitude, but because I paid a supposed computer professional two years ago to clone and uprade my Z61t HD. Although he said he had done this hundreds of times on non-Lenovo notebooks, he was unable to do so with Acronis my Thinkpad. It may have had something to do with a "hidden partition". I also see huge numbers of poor reviews of Acronis on Amazon, reciting all sorts of bugs and horror stories.

This raises a question: Does cloning my factory SSD load also clone this "hidden recovery partition" onto the target? Very confusing.

That aside:

Your solution seems to require a third party program and USB flash drives to accomplish my (a). Cost is a factor here. I was hoping that either the Thinkvantage software or Windows 8 could create backup/rescue media without a third party program. Is that not the case?

Second, I had in mind that ultrabay HD would itself be the R&R media, not a separate USB drive. My naive idea was that I could restore my system from the HD to a new SSD primary drive. Is this not possible? I probably don't understand the basic process.

 

Anyone can call him/herself a "professional."

There are no "hidden recovery partition." There are 3 partitions on a typical stock Lenovo HDD: System_DRV (boot, no drive letter), Windows_OS (system files and, possibly, user files added later; usually assigned drive letter C: ), Lenovo_Recovery_Partition (usually assigned drive letter Q: ).

The Lenovo Recovery Media Creation program expects a set of optical discs: 1 boot CD/DVD + 3 data DVDs. There are no two ways about this. That's the first item, before you swap the stock optical drive for an UltraBay caddy adapter.

The second item is saving a system image. You must use a separate program to do this. Acronis is one of the more popular programs for this purpose. You install then run Acronis, telling it to create a system image (a snapshot of what the SSD is right now) and save that snapshot image to a file on the HDD in the UltraBay caddy.

As you have confessed about your "personal computer ineptitude," I suggest you stick with the Lenovo Factory Recovery scheme. In the rare event that "the SSD fails," you could swap the optical drive back in and use the set of recovery discs (1 boot CD/DVD + 3 data DVDs) to bring the SSD back to life.

Other than that, just sit back, take a break from "computer designing" (as you said, you are "inept" at this) and enjoy your ThinkPad.

 

Kaso, thank you.

Are you saying that the Lenovo Revery Media Creation program can't do its thing onto a USB flash drive, as Linkster seemed to be suggesting in the context of Acronis?

Okay, assume I sucessfully create a set of optical disks as soon as I get the machine. My SSD fries. I (or Lenovo) put in a new SSD. I assume my optical disks only restore the original factory load. How do I get back all the files, data and programs that were put on the original SSD after I made the optical disks? Does take me back to learning how to use a third party cloning/backup program such as Acronis?

Thanks for your patience.

 

Your confessed "ineptitude" confuses the two different things.

One is to use a bootable USB flash drive as the target of the Lenovo Factory Recovery Media Creation program. In this particular context, such a bootable USB flash drive is logically equivalent to a set of optical discs, and Lenovo does have documentation on this.

The other is running Acronis on a bootable USB flash drive.

The two things are completely different. The only similar-sounding item is "USB flash drive."

Yes.

 

You can use the backup/restore capabilities in Windows, but most of us use other products like Acronis True Image Home because they are more flexible and work more reliably.

For instance, it used to be the Windows built-in program would not restore a backup to a drive that was smaller than the source. Therefore if you purchased a ThinkPad and did a backup from a 500GB HDD and wanted to restore to a 256GB SSD, you could not with the windows feature.

Acronis on there other hand does that easily.

You get what you pay for.

And trust us, you should be doing weekly backups. Buy a good product and build good habits. You'll be glad you did some day.

 

I have paid the price for poor habits in many areas of life. I've been using laptops for 15 years and various Thinkpads for 12 and have never backed up anything. Two HD crashes. Lost stuff.

There are different levels of ignorance and ineptitude. One relates to research and learning concepts, which I can do. The other is implementing complicated procedural steps with a confusing vocabulary, where I and many others apparently screw up things that are seemingly simple in concept -- like cloning a HD onto an SSD or vice versa.

Terminology in all fields is confusing. I'm not clear on the distinctions in the computer field as to how people use the verbs: copy, clone, image, back-up, save, recover, restore.

The new and better habits I want to learn are how, after a drive crash, to get back these three categories of things:

(1) The original 3 Lenovo factory load "partitions" identified by Kaso. My understanding is that I can do this using Thinkvantage software to create "bootable" optical disks or a bootable USB flash drive.

(2) My files, photos, documents and videos.These are the most important. Can't loses these again. I don't know whether this requires so-called cloning or backing up -- here's the verb confusion -- but I think I'm understanding I need a program to do this, maybe Acronis.

(3) My particular configuration of application programs. I see this usually being called cloning or imaging, but I dont' really understand how it differs from backing up. I'm now understanding I need a program to do this too, maybe the same one such as Acronis. Or I can just re-install them all, which is what I've always ended up doing.

I really appreciate this quick feedback because I'm actually trying to make a purchase decision before midnight tonight on the SSD prime drive, vs. an HD prime drive, vs. live with my Z61t until Haskell arrives next year and W8 is more stable.

BTW, I'll also confess dietary ineptitude, as I've never eaten 9 portions of vegetables a day.

 

Such a bootable USB flash drive or a set of optical discs (1 boot CD/DVD + 3 data DVDs) will be used to restore the main drive (be it HDD or SSD) to factory state, as when you turned on the notebook for the very first time.

Such media must be bootable because, in that situation, the notebook does not have a good HDD/SSD to boot from. It must rely on the USB flash drive or the first optical disc to come up and load the necessary programs and data from the Factory Recovery media.

You don't. Not strictly.

For your "files, photos, documents and videos," you can always COPY them (using Windows Explorer copy/paste operations using the mouse) from the main drive to an external USB drive. Programs such as Acronis can do clever things, but as far as USER FILES are concerned, the manual copy/paste operations work just fine. You can clearly label each folder on the external drive, for example "NOVEMBER 2012 BACKUP".

The above operation is usually called REGULAR BACKUP.

Because you cannot willy-nilly copy/paste SYSTEM programs and files, you rely on a specialized program to help to CLONE or IMAGE the current state of the whole system, including your applications and settings.

To me, the OS files and application programs are not important, because they can be re-installed easily. Heck, you can always buy a new computer. YOUR PERSONAL FILES are much more precious and extremely difficult to re-create. If I were you, I would focus my energy (and learning curve) on protecting YOUR PERSONAL FILES.

This is absolutely inexcusable.

On the other hand, I must add that I've used ThinkPads since the IBM days and, not once, did I have to use the Factory Recovery discs. Stop worrying about System Restore/Recovery and spend the time to protect/preserve YOUR PERSONAL FILES.


So, your true concerns have very little to do with the topic on this thread's heading.

Stop dreaming. Take care of YOUR PERSONAL FILES. Haskell won't make you any happier. Sandy Bridge came and went. Ivy Bridge came and is going. Is the situation significantly better?

 

I create the factory disks for one purpose, and only one purpose. I use them if I decide to sell the machine. It's also a good marketing tool for an eBay ad. People like to know they are getting the original Lenovo factory configuration.

They serve no other purpose for me.

So I create the DVD set, label it, put a couple of rubber bands around them, and toss them into the archive in my cabinet.

As for personal files, I get multiple copies of my stuff. Disk storage is cheap. Re-creation of precious moments isn't.

 

BTW, Kaso, before I began my purchasing decision process and made my first post here, I spent many tens of hours reading this board and other sources about many current laptop things. Among them, I was influenced by your many posts advocating the use of SSD's as a boot drive and moving the factory HD into the ultrabay.

I am thus convinced of the advantages of an SSD as the boot drive.

However, I am very afraid of my "procedural ineptitude" to properly clone the HD to the SSD. I just know something will go wrong (for me). Even more so, as a lawyer, I can tell when I am not getting informed answers from anyone in sales or technical service at Lenovo as to whether and how such a clone-and-move process will affect the Lenovo original and extended warranties.

Therefore, I was willing to undertake the incremental expense of buying a factory installed SSD drive. However, I am learning that that doesn't really solve my process ineptitude issue because it seems I have to learn how to learn how to clone if I want to image the factory SSD.

I agree I should focus on saving my user files, which in my pre-Thinkpad Apple days I used to do with manual copy and paste.

If I buy the factory SSD, put my user files from my current computer onto my new one (which I don't know how to do either), I'll end up with them on my ultrabay HD. So, I suppose I'll have to back that up to yet a third storage device, manually or with a program. Oy vey! This is getting too expensive even with the former employee discount and CYBERMONDAY.

Maybe I'll just go back to a factory HD, get a modern external drive, and forget this whole SSD Idea.

No, wait, maybe I could back up the user files on the ultrabay HD to an mSATA card in the WAN slot. I think I read posts on that.

 

That's NO "backup"! What if your notebook was run over by a bus? What if your notebook was stolen? All the drives internally attached to your notebook (HDD, SSD, mSATA SSD, UltraBay caddy, whatever) would be screwed. The very idea of BACKUP is to save a copy of all PERSONAL folders/files that you REALLY CARE about onto an external drive, separate and away from your notebook.

Money? Hmm, you'd better put in some necessary investment to save yourself from any grief/regret/remorse later. And that has absolutely nothing to do with mechanical drive or solid-state drive, or ThinkPad.

On some notebooks, I have mSATA SSD boot drive, plus two HDDs, one in the main bay and the other in the UltraBay. On some other notebooks, I have SSD boot drive in the main bay, plus one very large HDD in the UltraBay. In whatever configuration, the habit and procedure of BACKING UP my PERSONAL FILES onto EXTERNAL DRIVES stay the same.

 

Point taken on the concept of "external" and I appreciate your focused thinking, Kaso.

Although my notebook rarely leaves my bedroom and my personal history makes me more afraid of HD crashes than losing my notebook or having it run over, I'm now thinking I should research USB flash drives for various purposes, most importantly to backup my personal files. I've never owned one.

Can I move my files from a Windows XP Z61t onto a Windows 8 T530 using a USB flash drive?

 

USB flash drives are convenient for small, one-shot deals (like bringing a couple of PDF documents to the local Kinko's for printing/binding), but for serious backups, you should consider an EXTERNAL USB HARD DRIVE, like this one or this one.

This is a sample USB flash drive:

​

This is a sample EXTERNAL USB HARD DRIVE:

​

Yes. You can do so between a "source" computer and any number of "target" computers, the simplest case being from your old Z61t to your new T530.

Plug the external drive into a USB port on the Z61t. Windows XP recognizes it. Create a folder on it, with an appropriate name, as you normally would. Now go to the main drive of the Z61t. Select a whole bunch of files/folders on it. Do a copy. Now go back to the newly created folder on the external drive. Do a paste. Unmount ("safely remove") and unplug the external drive.

Plug that same external drive into a USB port on the T530. Windows 8 recognizes it. Open that new folder on the external drive. Copy the folders/files in that folder. Now go to whichever drive you want on the T530. Do a paste.

Minor details may vary a little, but you get the gist of it as I explained above.

Well, you could drop the notebook from the desk and all internally attached drives could be damaged. So much for "backup" copies. Have them on a separate device and keep it away from your notebook, perhaps in a closet.

(As a lawyer, you don't keep clients' legal documents in the office, do you?)

 

Kaso has done a really job answering your questions, I agree with his advice.

My take on it is as follows:

Everyone will have their opinions on different software and even the best software gets the occasional bad review, often not because the software is poor but because these people don't know how to use it correctly and then blame the tools when things goes wrong, which is often caused by their ineptitude. Acronis is used by many experienced IT professionals and general consumers alike, with little to no issues. You also need to ask yourself what version were these people reviewing... Take my word and that of the other people on this thread when we say it's one of the best supported/documented and easiest to use back-up solutions on the market for the price. Support/documentation being one of the most important factors. I am sorry to hear about your poor experience but like Kaso said, unfortunately there is far too many cowboy "IT professionals" in our industry. Maybe the drive he was trying to copy was encrypted... and he didn't know how to deal with this.

There is currently a good cyberweek special on the Acronis website where you can buy both True Image Home 2013 and the Plus Pack for $59. Is knowing you have the right tools to backup your data and having the peace of mind that your data is safe not worth $59?

Now you don't need Acronis to make a backup of the system the way it comes from factory, you can use the Lenovo backup tool for that. I personally boot the Laptop for the first time, enter my details and the first software I install is Acronis, I then make a clone of the factory HDD/SSD and store it in a safe place. After this I also create the backup DVDs using the Lenovo tool, which I can give to anyone if I sell the computer in future. - This takes care of your factory image being backed-up.

Now to your number (2) question. Yes it is best to use good backup software like Acronis to perform your regular backups. I personally do two things, like I mentioned before I take a second clone of my SSD once I have everything setup/tweaked just the way I like it and use this as my restore image if I ever want to go back to a almost clean install - I never delete this clone. From there it's just a matter of continually doing back-ups of your personal data like photos and documents etc. Keep these backups on a large external drive, it's also good practice to test these backups once in a while but I won't complicate things. I personally keep a copy of my latest backup on two different drives but this is just because I am extra careful and large HDDs are so cheap now days that I have a few around the home. I also create extra clones if I have installed a number of new applications.

(3) Clones are different from backups in that a clone is a complete copy of a physical HDD/SSD including the Master Boot Record, Hidden Files, Drive Signatures etc it is as it says a clone of the whole drive and allows you to restore that complete drive to another as if nothing had changed. Backups sometimes just include selected files/folders. I won't go into detail on why you want copies of your drive signatures or MBR, that is another subject but there is a difference between cloning and simply doing a backup of selected files.

Like Kaso said, forget Haskell, unless today's Ivy Bridge CPU's don't meet your needs... There will always going to be better technology around the corner. Buy what works for you now and be happy with it, worry about the new tech when it's time for another upgrade.

 

Of course not. I'm a highly adept computer age lawyer. I keep all my client docs in digital form on my never-backed-up Z61t.

Thank goodness I'm the only client I've ever had during this period. Retired.

Seriously, much thanks for the tip on external USB drives. I never heard of them, and was just researching external HD's.

So, conceptually, I could use the external USB drive to backup my Z. Then, when and if I get the new computer, I can use the drive to paste the files onto it's HD. After that, I assume I can use it as a backup device for files on both computers, properly labeled.

 

Not just "conceptually" -- practically and realistically. Not just "assume" -- know.

(The lawyers I use keep their clients' documents in a vault, outside and away from the office. A few weeks ago, I read about the case of a NASA laptop got stolen with a ton of social security numbers and other personal sensitive information on its hard drive. Cases like that abound. How stupid! The problem is not technology, it's the molecules sitting between the keyboard and the chair that are dense. I don't mean to direct this at you personally, just a general observation. Haskell? Hah!)

 

Thanks for the tip on Acronis. I agree that most problems are with the use of computer tools, and that describes me. Not sure I understand yet the function of the Acronis Plus Pack, but I may just get a trial version key for 30 days while I make up my mind what I want to do.

The reference to Haskell was mainly a metaphor for my indecision as to whether I want to upgrade computers right now or wait a year. Strangely, this very informative conversation is moving me away from the idea of a factory installed SSD in the main bay. In that case, maybe I could use Acronis to somehow automate my personal file backups onto an external USB drive, while experimenting with some drive cloning.

I've read authoritative-sounding posts on this board that say the mSATA slot on a T530 has a transfer rate of only 3-something, whereas the main bay and ultrabay have transfer rates of 6-something . I conclude from this that boot SATA in the main bay would be more efficient than boot mSATA in the WAN slot.

 

Good counsel always takes a step back and understands the real issue.

Which is twofold: (i) regularly making backup copies of your personal files; and (ii) occasionally saving images of your system drive with all applications and settings as they currently stand.

Whether or not a HDD or a SSD sitting in the main bay is irrelevant.

I am authoritative enough , and I know my case-by-case needs. Things are not cut-and-dry, and there is not one single conclusion. Moreover, not all drives can currently saturate the 6 Gbit/s transfer rate.

You're being intoxicated by technological details. There are the leaves, the trees and the forest.

 

Yes there is a difference between the 3Gbps mSATA interface and the Primary and UltraBay interfaces which run at 6Gbps. Will this interface speed difference be an issue for 90% of consumers, I doubt it.

Depending on the SSD, unless your doing a ton of file transfers between two SSDs capable of 6Gbps speeds on 6Gbps interfaces then a very much doubt you will notice the difference. Most of the time you will be transferring to a 7200rpm HDD USB 3.0 external drive or a 7200rpm HDD installed in your UltraBay, these HDD drives can only do about 140MB/s max, that's a transfer rate 3Gbps SATA can easily match.

If you are dealing with a database accessing very large files located on a fast 6Gbps SSD drive, that is one scenario where you may start to notice a difference in performance.

For more info on real world differences you can check out these tests: [\URL="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110-7.html"]http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110-7.html[/URL]

But like Kaso said, I doubt you will notice the difference. In saying that I still prefer to spend my money on a full size SATA 6Gbps drive, that is if the $ difference is not that large, reason being I feel I can use them on more devices than the mSATA drives.

Comes down to how much you want to spend but performance wise, I doubt you will notice any real difference.

Acronis Plus pack just gives you some extras like the ability to restore an OS image to completely different Hardware, so you could take a copy of the Lenovo OS image and restore it on a Home PC running a totally different CPU, GPU etc. It also adds Dynamic (LDM) disks support, which is something my previous Sony Vaio S15 used which is the main reason why I had to buy the Plus Pack.