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Current M.2 drive with a Windows 10 install is 128GB. New M.2 drive is 1TB.

I only have one M.2 slot.

Question: If I clone the old drive to an external hard drive that is 2TB, will it cause any issues when I clone to the new 1TB M.2 due to size difference? Or should I make a 128GB partition on external hard drive to clone/restore file system from?

Giacomo1968
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WvFitz
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  • “Or should I make a 128GB partition on external hard drive to clone/restore file system from?” That is overkill. An SSD is not different than a hard drive. This is not magic. Just copy the data from the 128GB SSD to the 2TB hard drive. And then copy the data from the hard drive to the new 1TB SSD. Et viola! It will be fine. – Giacomo1968 Dec 23 '23 at 01:48
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    @Giacomo1968, if the OP just copies the files, it leaves the boot stuff behind. – Rohit Gupta Dec 23 '23 at 02:28
  • Oh! Thanks for pointing that out @RohitGupta. In that case, just clone the 12BGB SSD to the 2TB external hard drive. The hard drive will be made to be “12BGB” temporarily. Then clone the 12BGB hard drive to the 1TB SSD. Should work. Reformatting and partitioning the hard drive should recover it to its 2TB size. – Giacomo1968 Dec 23 '23 at 02:32
  • Backups and cloning of Windows partitions is done natively within Windows by capturing WIMs, applying them to the new partition. – JW0914 Dec 23 '23 at 13:00

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If you wish to avoid problems, back up the data on the small drive, remove it entirely. Install the new SSD, install Windows and restore data. Your overall partitioning on the main disk will be better this way.

Trying to use both drives at once in some way may require you to have it that way going forward.

Just avoid all the problems and do it one step at a time as I laid out in the original paragraph here.

Once done you can use external drives as you wish without any issue.

I also avoid cloning when making a new installation because cloning brings over old problems.

I have done things as I have suggested for many years with excellent long term results.

John
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  • Why reinstall Windows and why would both drives being installed create an issue? Backups and cloning of Windows partitions is done natively within Windows by capturing WIMs, applying the WIM to the new partition. There is never a need to reinstall Windows simply to move Windows to a new partition or drive – JW0914 Dec 23 '23 at 13:04
  • Two things: This place is littered with corpses of two drives in one computer for one OS. It can be done. I do not recommend it at all. And cloning old errors to keep them going in the new system does not seem worthwhile to me. I am not saying things can't be done. I am saying starting out new should use a wiser approach. – John Dec 23 '23 at 13:17
  • Most systems have things that can be improved in numerous ways (I put all these in a bucket called "errors") . I am merely suggesting a method that has served me reliably and well for many years at little cost to long term inconvenience. – John Dec 23 '23 at 13:26
  • What errors? This is about moving Windows from one drive to another - no errors apparent. If concerned about errors, a repair install can be done afterwards, but to reinstall is an inconvenience when WIMs are purpose-built for this in lieu of reinstalling all software, figuring out which data to backup (it seems many users don't use separate partitions for user data directories within %UserProfile%, negating this very issue), etc. - WIMs are the backbone of Windows, Windows is installed from an install.<esd||wim> (itself a master install that was WIM'd), what WinRE/WinPE are, etc. – JW0914 Dec 23 '23 at 13:38
  • (sorry, I removed the prior comment to edit it after the 5min grace period to remove something I saw as argumentative, not catching it fast enough before you replied, reposting it) There are many solutions to the same problem - WIMs are no more a correct solution than this answer. I'm simply pointing out inconveniences arise when reinstalling Windows solely to move it to another drive when WIMs are literally purpose-built for this very issue - deploying Windows. A repair install solves all OS-related issues since it overwrites everything within %WinDir%, except for a registry stores – JW0914 Dec 23 '23 at 13:38