Clonezilla / Discussion / Open Discussion: copying a hard drive with three partitions to a new SSD with 3 bigger partitions

Hello,

in the year 2014 i switched my old server from wortmann AG with Windows Server 2003 to the new server from lenovo with Windows Server 2012 (I am not sure if I really have 2012 R2 because I paid Lenovo for it, included a new server with new hardware etc. but Windows is saying me it's 2012 without R2 and I have the feeling that 2012 and 2012 R2 are now the same since they are EOL (end of life) no updates anymore.

it was a very hard time and I had to choose how to create the partition (how to partitionate? in germany we say "partitionieren" which means "to partition"). i have a 500 gb HDD (since 2016 i will never touch any hard disk and only rely on SSD especially NVMe, i will call every ssd from now on nvme with pcie4 or even pcie5 on m.2 slot or pcie-slot. pcie means PCI Express). i had chosen 50 gb for windows 2012 fresh install. then i have two programs who are more important for me than my wife with my daughter. one program is called charly xl from the company solutio KG and it works a lot with postgresql. i gave it 41 gb. the partition is nearly full. i thought resizing with be simple but the problem is the third partition. it's for an x-ray program called dbswin, it works with several 10 MB files in dicom format and firebird sql. in the third partition is also every junk and other data, which should not be mixed with charly xl, i earn my money with charly xl. it needs way more space than 100 gb like 150 gb right now. so i have three partitions:

C:\ is 50 gb for windows server 2012 and NTFS

E:\ is 41 gb and NTFS

Z:\ is 400 gb and ReFS

since E:\ is behind Z:\ and the last partition, i can't shrink it and therefore i can't make E:\ bigger
i have learnt from my mistakes and want to melt E:\ and Z:\ in one partition with one folder for charly xl, one folder for dbswin and one folder for every junk i produce like excel tables, bookmarks, family photos. but this for the next server with amd genoa 9004 tralala, 64 gb on die ecc ram nvme 2.0 2 terabyte whatever technology.

i will still want to use the server and i am thinking about cloning the server hdd onto an SSD (i say SSD to nand-storage for S-ATA and nvme for nand-storage on pcie). at 9 pm when i want to check the data i have produced from morning to night, the backup is starting and the hard disc drive is very busy, i hope that it won't happen when the data is on an SSD at S-ATA. i would buy a 1 tb ssd and copy everything on it, shouldn't be a problem, well at least i copy the first 50 gb of boot partition and drive C:. then i delete partition E:\ and Z:\ if created on the new drive, then i make C:\ bigger from 50 gb to 100 gb, then i create 2 partitions, one with lets say 130 gb and the other with 800 gb. the 130 gb partition will contain charly xl and the 800 gb will contain dbswin and other junk data. since cloning an old refs partition to a new 800 gb ntfs partition is not a good idea, i hope simple copying would be enough. i don't know if really everything will be copied but since charly xl is not from microsoft and only microsoft can hide it's own files or regedit settings, it must be possible. i would do the same for Z:\ and dbswin with junk data. simply copying the c:\ never worked for me and copying the boot partition is impossible so cloning the first sectors up to 50 gb is definitely better.

the new ssd should have follow partition table:

C: with 100 gb ntfs
E: with 130 gb or more ntfs
Z: with 800 gb ntfs (yes i refuse on ReFS since i didn't had any advantages of it and below 2 TB i think ntfs is better than ReFS, refs was more a test and even the developers of dbswin who has customers who produce 900 gb per day (srsly?!?!?) can't tell me if refs is better than ntfs or not, they never heard of refs)

i don't think changing the drive letters to something like C: E: F: is a good idea. D: is reserved for the useless dvd-drive and changing the drive letters will confuse windows and charly xl/dbswin.

i forgot to say the transfer from windows server 2003 to 2012 was super hard. first i have installed windows server 2012, then i created to extra partitions E: and Z:, then i have installed charly xl (again) and copied the SQL-files from the old server to the new server, then i had to register charly. then i copied many many files from old dbswin to new dbswin and installed dbswin. the activation of dbswin was pure hell. the company wanted to come to my office and callibrate the monitors, i said no, thats expensive and nonsense. after a day or two i got a very friendly man from customer support who activated dbswin over remote control (teamviewer) and associated the old data with my new dbswin for free. there are, indeed, good people on this world.

i will work the same way when i buy a server with windows server 2022 since upgrade from 2012 to 2022 is not a good idea and i want super fast nvme for pcie5, i will install windows server 2022 new and fresh on a 100 gb partition C:. then the rest about 800 gb will be D:\ and contains one folder for charly xl, one folder for dbswin and one folder for every junk i produce like excel tables, bookmarks, family photos.

will it work this way? i am afraid of the sectors on the new ssd, i am not sure if windows server 2012, charly xl or dbswin will become angry because of new storage sectors and get confused.

from my youth i have learn to devide the drive in min. 2 partitions. one for the operating system like windows, one for my data. programs like word, firefox, libreoffice, audacity, gimp, etc. any maybe even charly xl and dbswin can on C:\ too but i have learnt that it's better to devide operating system and programs-close-to-operating-system like word (ms office) and firefox on C:\ and very strange, foreign, non microsoft-software, specific software like charly xl and dbswin on another partition. so if the operating system makes trouble, i can simply format c:\ and install windows again AND finding and exporting or copying my junk data like family photos is easier, if it's not melted with windows subfolder system (no admin rights needed etc.)

Last edit: arhfk 2022-11-05

copying a hard drive with three partitions to a new SSD with 3 bigger partitions

A partition and disk imaging/cloning program

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copying a hard drive with three partitions to a new SSD with 3 bigger partitions

copying a hard drive with three partitions to a new SSD with 3 bigger partitions

A partition and disk imaging/cloning program

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Help

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copying a hard drive with three partitions to a new SSD with 3 bigger partitions