O/T: Win7 m.2 2280 clone to hdd.

I am thinking of getting one M.2 2280 for the gamer machine.
It has (2) M.2 plugs on the MB (sata/2280).
It currently has (2) hdds that are clones of each other and
both are bootable.

There is a lot of info and software for cloning a hdd to M.2.

There is absolutely nothing about cloning a M.2 to hdd.
How can that be done and have a bootable hdd?

Paul in Houston TX wrote:
I am thinking of getting one M.2 2280 for the gamer machine.
It has (2) M.2 plugs on the MB (sata/2280).
It currently has (2) hdds that are clones of each other and
both are bootable.

There is a lot of info and software for cloning a hdd to M.2.

There is absolutely nothing about cloning a M.2 to hdd.
How can that be done and have a bootable hdd?


M.2 is a bit tougher, because the BIOS has to
have some support (a code module) to support NVMe.

For a SATA hard drive, you need to check how the
SATA port is set in the BIOS. I'd just make sure
the ports aren't set to RAID, and use either IDE or
AHCI. IDE would be a good choice for WinXP perhaps.
AHCI is sufficient for anything newer as an OS.

With the M.2 booted, you can use Macrium Reflect Free
to clone the M.2 to the hard drive. Macrium will change
a few GUID values, so the two devices should not conflict
with one another.

The Macrium emergency boot CD, has a "boot repair" option,
to handle cases where the system doesn't boot afterwards.

If I was doing it, I'd clone over, then shut down
and remove the M.2 when booting the HDD the first
time. Just in case.

The fact it's an M.2 doesn't make too much difference.
In the other direction, going SATA HDD to M.2, there
are probably a few more things that can go wrong
(missing driver for Win7, missing BIOS support, or
whatever).

Paul

On Mon, 02 Jul 2018 23:20:46 -0400, Paul wrote:

Paul in Houston TX wrote:
I am thinking of getting one M.2 2280 for the gamer machine.
It has (2) M.2 plugs on the MB (sata/2280).
It currently has (2) hdds that are clones of each other and
both are bootable.

There is a lot of info and software for cloning a hdd to M.2.

There is absolutely nothing about cloning a M.2 to hdd.
How can that be done and have a bootable hdd?


M.2 is a bit tougher, because the BIOS has to
have some support (a code module) to support NVMe.

M.2 isn't necessarily NVMe; it could also be regular old SATA, in which
case no additional drivers would be required. The description above,
"sata/2280", doesn't tell us either way, does it? If anything, it looks
like SATA. 2280 is just the physical size, 22mm wide and 80mm long.

With the M.2 booted, you can use Macrium Reflect Free
to clone the M.2 to the hard drive.

I was under the impression that he wanted to clone in the other
direction. Essentially, if the M.2 is recognized by the system, it
should be available as a clone target.

I've done it a few times here with Macrium Reflect Free and didn't see
any issues. In two cases I cloned from HDD to M.2 SATA, and in the third
case I cloned from HDD to M.2 NVMe. In that case, the OS was Win 10,
which has the NVMe driver built in.

--

Char Jackson

On Mon, 02 Jul 2018 22:59:24 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Mon, 02 Jul 2018 23:20:46 -0400, Paul wrote:

Paul in Houston TX wrote:
I am thinking of getting one M.2 2280 for the gamer machine.
It has (2) M.2 plugs on the MB (sata/2280).
It currently has (2) hdds that are clones of each other and
both are bootable.

There is a lot of info and software for cloning a hdd to M.2.

There is absolutely nothing about cloning a M.2 to hdd.
How can that be done and have a bootable hdd?


M.2 is a bit tougher, because the BIOS has to
have some support (a code module) to support NVMe.

M.2 isn't necessarily NVMe; it could also be regular old SATA, in which
case no additional drivers would be required. The description above,
"sata/2280", doesn't tell us either way, does it? If anything, it looks
like SATA. 2280 is just the physical size, 22mm wide and 80mm long.

With the M.2 booted, you can use Macrium Reflect Free
to clone the M.2 to the hard drive.

I was under the impression that he wanted to clone in the other
direction. Essentially, if the M.2 is recognized by the system, it
should be available as a clone target.

On second and third read, I admit I don't know which direction he wants
to go. The first part of the OP looks like HDD-M.2 but the second part
goes the other way.

I've done it a few times here with Macrium Reflect Free and didn't see
any issues. In two cases I cloned from HDD to M.2 SATA, and in the third
case I cloned from HDD to M.2 NVMe. In that case, the OS was Win 10,
which has the NVMe driver built in.

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
On Mon, 02 Jul 2018 23:20:46 -0400, Paul wrote:

Paul in Houston TX wrote:
I am thinking of getting one M.2 2280 for the gamer machine.
It has (2) M.2 plugs on the MB (sata/2280).
It currently has (2) hdds that are clones of each other and
both are bootable.

There is a lot of info and software for cloning a hdd to M.2.

There is absolutely nothing about cloning a M.2 to hdd.
How can that be done and have a bootable hdd?


M.2 is a bit tougher, because the BIOS has to
have some support (a code module) to support NVMe.

M.2 isn't necessarily NVMe; it could also be regular old SATA, in which
case no additional drivers would be required. The description above,
"sata/2280", doesn't tell us either way, does it? If anything, it looks
like SATA. 2280 is just the physical size, 22mm wide and 80mm long.

With the M.2 booted, you can use Macrium Reflect Free
to clone the M.2 to the hard drive.

I was under the impression that he wanted to clone in the other
direction. Essentially, if the M.2 is recognized by the system, it
should be available as a clone target.

I've done it a few times here with Macrium Reflect Free and didn't see
any issues. In two cases I cloned from HDD to M.2 SATA, and in the third
case I cloned from HDD to M.2 NVMe. In that case, the OS was Win 10,
which has the NVMe driver built in.

Ah ha! Sorry for not giving complete info before. I am still learning terminology.
I see now that 2280 is one of several form factors and M.2 is the connector.
The Samsung NVMe pcie x4, EVO 970 500gb 2080 looks nice.

The machine does have uefi and ahci. It does not support IDE.
I think I set it up for legacy AHCI. Will have to check.
The MB is a one year old Gigabyte GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 with (2) M.2 plugs
for pcie x4 or sata.

Cloning the hdd to NVMe looks easy enough according to the web.
As Paul said, it will need driver(s) which are free to d/l from Samsung.

I want to be able to clone the NVMe to hdd and have it bootable.
Also, want to be able to clone the hdd back to the NVMe just in case.
Sometimes my experiments go wrong and it's nice to be able to boot a clone.
If I can't clone back and forth then I'll stick with the 2 hdd's and
forget about the NVMe.

Char Jackson wrote:
On Mon, 02 Jul 2018 22:59:24 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On second and third read, I admit I don't know which direction he wants
to go. The first part of the OP looks like HDD-M.2 but the second part
goes the other way.

I just posted a better description, I hope.

Thank you Char and Paul.
Both always helpful.

Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Char Jackson wrote:
On Mon, 02 Jul 2018 23:20:46 -0400, Paul wrote:

Paul in Houston TX wrote:
I am thinking of getting one M.2 2280 for the gamer machine.
It has (2) M.2 plugs on the MB (sata/2280).
It currently has (2) hdds that are clones of each other and
both are bootable.

There is a lot of info and software for cloning a hdd to M.2.

There is absolutely nothing about cloning a M.2 to hdd.
How can that be done and have a bootable hdd?


M.2 is a bit tougher, because the BIOS has to
have some support (a code module) to support NVMe.

M.2 isn't necessarily NVMe; it could also be regular old SATA, in which
case no additional drivers would be required. The description above,
"sata/2280", doesn't tell us either way, does it? If anything, it looks
like SATA. 2280 is just the physical size, 22mm wide and 80mm long.

With the M.2 booted, you can use Macrium Reflect Free
to clone the M.2 to the hard drive.

I was under the impression that he wanted to clone in the other
direction. Essentially, if the M.2 is recognized by the system, it
should be available as a clone target.

I've done it a few times here with Macrium Reflect Free and didn't see
any issues. In two cases I cloned from HDD to M.2 SATA, and in the third
case I cloned from HDD to M.2 NVMe. In that case, the OS was Win 10,
which has the NVMe driver built in.

Ah ha! Sorry for not giving complete info before. I am still learning
terminology.
I see now that 2280 is one of several form factors and M.2 is the
connector.
The Samsung NVMe pcie x4, EVO 970 500gb 2080 looks nice.

The machine does have uefi and ahci. It does not support IDE.
I think I set it up for legacy AHCI. Will have to check.
The MB is a one year old Gigabyte GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 with (2) M.2 plugs
for pcie x4 or sata.

Cloning the hdd to NVMe looks easy enough according to the web.
As Paul said, it will need driver(s) which are free to d/l from Samsung.

I want to be able to clone the NVMe to hdd and have it bootable.
Also, want to be able to clone the hdd back to the NVMe just in case.
Sometimes my experiments go wrong and it's nice to be able to boot a clone.
If I can't clone back and forth then I'll stick with the 2 hdd's and
forget about the NVMe.


As long as the OS image has both drivers on it,
you should be able to move it back and forth between
storage types.

The device has the M key cut.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3269...sd-review.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2

And when an application like Macrium is cloning, it
sends out TRIM before cloning over. For when the destination
is Flash based.

Motherboards that have the "standoffs" and "connector"
for M.2, are likely to have the BIOS support module.
What I can't tell you (no NVMe motherboard here yet),
is whether you're forced to use UEFI, or whether
legacy CSM is good enough for the OS installation
process. Todd might know more about that, because
he's been fooling around with that stuff. This might
pose a challenge if your installed OS already "exists".

And something better than a HDD for C: is nice
on a modern OS. For regular bulk storage, I still
like rotating platters. At least, if the drive
is a good one. (No shingled crap thank you.)

Paul

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
And something better than a HDD for C: is nice
on a modern OS. For regular bulk storage, I still

Which OSs would you classify as "modern"?

like rotating platters. At least, if the drive

So do I, but for reasons that probably aren't objective. What are _your_
reasons, other than cost?

is a good one. (No shingled crap thank you.)

(What does shingled mean?)

Paul
John
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If you help someone when they're in trouble, they will remember you when
they're in trouble again.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
And something better than a HDD for C: is nice
on a modern OS. For regular bulk storage, I still

Which OSs would you classify as "modern"?

like rotating platters. At least, if the drive

So do I, but for reasons that probably aren't objective. What are _your_
reasons, other than cost?

is a good one. (No shingled crap thank you.)

(What does shingled mean?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingl...etic_recording

That's as opposed to "conventional" PMR.

Since the Wikipedia article is just a pretty bad stub,
a picture will have to do.

The shingled write is on the right hand side of this picture.

http://wp.xin.at/wp-content/uploads/...cture-base.png

Tracks are written in groups of seven. Once a write starts, it is
a continuous process. Seven tracks are written, even if you only
desire to change one byte. This means the simplest operation ends
up as a Read-Modify-Write.

The seven tracks have no clearance visible between them. This
increases the track pitch, but also increase the latency when
doing writes. The cache DRAM on the drive controller board, is
working hard on drives like this.

The conventional drive on the left of the picture, has a gap
between tracks. That size of gap is also present between
groups-of-seven on the right hand part of the picture, but they
neglected to show that.

The first generation of those had terrible (and inconsistent)
write performance. 25MB/sec or so. This has improved enough,
that they're shipping 2TB drives now as shingled models. Who
knows what the reliability is like on an idea like this...

*******

Win10 absolutely needs an SSD. There's too much maintenance
activity to work without it.

If you're using a third party AV, it could be a factor in your
decision too. Even a meek and mild OS like WinXP, with
indexing disabled, might need help if the AV is constantly
scanning.

It's the degree of unnecessary disk I/O that determines
the device type.

And the OS itself has speed limits. There will be times when
you wonder why your NVMe isn't running flat out, and that's
the file system stack you can thank for that.

But at least the NVMe will have nice benchmark results.

Paul

On Tue, 03 Jul 2018 03:55:38 -0400, Paul wrote:

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
And something better than a HDD for C: is nice
on a modern OS. For regular bulk storage, I still

Which OSs would you classify as "modern"?

like rotating platters. At least, if the drive

So do I, but for reasons that probably aren't objective. What are _your_
reasons, other than cost?

is a good one. (No shingled crap thank you.)

(What does shingled mean?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingl...etic_recording

That's as opposed to "conventional" PMR.

Since the Wikipedia article is just a pretty bad stub,
a picture will have to do.

The shingled write is on the right hand side of this picture.

http://wp.xin.at/wp-content/uploads/...cture-base.png

Tracks are written in groups of seven. Once a write starts, it is
a continuous process. Seven tracks are written, even if you only
desire to change one byte. This means the simplest operation ends
up as a Read-Modify-Write.

Just to amplify that a bit, reviews say that SMR drives aren't any
slower than expected when doing initial writes to a blank drive. The
Read-Modify-Write crap 'only' comes into play when you need to change
something on a track that already has data, or on a track whose
neighboring tracks already have data. Unfortunately, that will likely be
true much of the time when a drive is used on a personal computer.

Where SMR drives shine is in situations where data is written once, then
never or rarely altered. Certain Enterprise storage roles come to mind,
but I have trouble making a case for a home user to come out ahead with
SMR. You can get very high capacity at a very reasonable price, but you
might not like the day to day performance. For that reason, I've avoided
SMR on any of my personal systems.

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 03 Jul 2018 03:55:38 -0400, Paul wrote:

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
And something better than a HDD for C: is nice
on a modern OS. For regular bulk storage, I still
Which OSs would you classify as "modern"?

like rotating platters. At least, if the drive
So do I, but for reasons that probably aren't objective. What are _your_
reasons, other than cost?

is a good one. (No shingled crap thank you.)
(What does shingled mean?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingl...etic_recording

That's as opposed to "conventional" PMR.

Since the Wikipedia article is just a pretty bad stub,
a picture will have to do.

The shingled write is on the right hand side of this picture.

http://wp.xin.at/wp-content/uploads/...cture-base.png

Tracks are written in groups of seven. Once a write starts, it is
a continuous process. Seven tracks are written, even if you only
desire to change one byte. This means the simplest operation ends
up as a Read-Modify-Write.

Just to amplify that a bit, reviews say that SMR drives aren't any
slower than expected when doing initial writes to a blank drive. The
Read-Modify-Write crap 'only' comes into play when you need to change
something on a track that already has data, or on a track whose
neighboring tracks already have data. Unfortunately, that will likely be
true much of the time when a drive is used on a personal computer.

Where SMR drives shine is in situations where data is written once, then
never or rarely altered. Certain Enterprise storage roles come to mind,
but I have trouble making a case for a home user to come out ahead with
SMR. You can get very high capacity at a very reasonable price, but you
might not like the day to day performance. For that reason, I've avoided
SMR on any of my personal systems.


But the scary part is, Seagate is selling these 0.8" high
shingled drives at the 2TB capacity point, as a replacement
for a previous generation 1" high 3 platter drive. Now, that
drive was just fine the way it was. A poster in another group
managed to find the 3 platter version and buy that instead.

It's quite possible users will be tricked into making that
2TB shingled thing into a boot drive. And it doesn't state
anywhere in the documentation, what it is. The conclusion
it's shingled, comes from density considerations.

I'm all for an enterprise user buying a 14TB version of
a thing like this, knowing it's for archival storage of
some sort. It's quite another thing to tease home
users with crap like this, and have them use the
drives for precisely the wrong things.

Paul

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul
writes:
[]
And something better than a HDD for C: is nice
on a modern OS. For regular bulk storage, I still
Which OSs would you classify as "modern"?

like rotating platters. At least, if the drive
So do I, but for reasons that probably aren't objective. What are
_your_ reasons, other than cost?

(You didn't answer that bit!)


is a good one. (No shingled crap thank you.)
(What does shingled mean?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingl...etic_recording

That's as opposed to "conventional" PMR.

Since the Wikipedia article is just a pretty bad stub,
a picture will have to do.

The shingled write is on the right hand side of this picture.

http://wp.xin.at/wp-content/uploads/...cture-base.png

Thanks for that; between the stub and that picture, very clear:
basically tracks partially overlap previous tracks - like the individual
rows of materials on a sloping roof, like slates or tiles. (I give this
clarification because in UK, we don't use "shingle" for anything but the
loose gravel you find on a beach that isn't sand; in particular, we
don't have it as a singular, "a shingle". [So we can't "put out our
shingle."])

Is there any way to tell whether a drive is a (firmware-based) one of
this type, so as to be able to avoid them?
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The desire to remain private and/or anonymous used to be a core British value,
but in recent times it has been treated with suspicion - an unfortunate by-
product of the widespread desire for fame. - Chris Middleton,
Computing 6 September 2011

On Tue, 03 Jul 2018 07:14:41 -0400, Paul wrote:

But the scary part is, Seagate is selling these 0.8" high
shingled drives at the 2TB capacity point, as a replacement
for a previous generation 1" high 3 platter drive. Now, that
drive was just fine the way it was. A poster in another group
managed to find the 3 platter version and buy that instead.

It's quite possible users will be tricked into making that
2TB shingled thing into a boot drive. And it doesn't state
anywhere in the documentation, what it is. The conclusion
it's shingled, comes from density considerations.

I'm all for an enterprise user buying a 14TB version of
a thing like this, knowing it's for archival storage of
some sort. It's quite another thing to tease home
users with crap like this, and have them use the
drives for precisely the wrong things.

You and I are in full agreement. I wish they would proudly label each
SMR drive in such a way that I could easily avoid it.

--

Char Jackson

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:


Is there any way to tell whether a drive is a (firmware-based) one of
this type, so as to be able to avoid them?

Using "shingled" or "SMR" is for public relations
purposes a poisoned descriptor.

You're not likely to find an admission of which
ones are shingled.

Shingled drives had a first generation release,
during which people discovered the lousy write rate,
and that kinda put a stop to the launch. Now that
they make such fantastic use of the cache DRAM,
Seagate is back selling them again. But cannot
put a three letter acronym like SMR in the advert.

I can tell you, that if you find a 512n drive,
that's not likely to be shingled. Oh, they could
do it, but that would be a silly mixture. A shingled
drive could be 512e (like most consumer drives),
or it would make sense to sell 4Kn versions. But
mixing the spatially less efficient 512n type
with the spatially more efficient "shingle"
mode, doesn't make a lot of sense.

In 2018, to find a 512n drive, you could look for
the spec sheet for "WDC Gold". Possibly 512n up to
the 4TB capacity point. Larger drives would switch
back to 512e. A WDC Gold would be tailor made
for a millionaire WinXP user :-)

Paul

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Is there any way to tell whether a drive is a (firmware-based) one
of this type, so as to be able to avoid them?

Using "shingled" or "SMR" is for public relations
purposes a poisoned descriptor.

You're not likely to find an admission of which
ones are shingled.
[]
)-:

Is my "HGST HTS541010B7E610 (1000G)" (really 931 GiB of course), bought
over the counter a few months ago, of that type? Can I tell from any
part of that number?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I'm the oldest woman on primetime not baking cakes.
- Anne Robinson, RT 2015/8/15-21