Alright, since I’ve got only about 150G left on my 1TB SSD on my gaming PC, and I hear there’s another big Flight Simulator coming soon , I’m thinking of getting a new 2 or 3 TB SSD, probably a WD Black. Just want to make sure I have the migration steps right.
Install new SSD into secondary NVMe slot.
Download Acronis True Image (free) from WD site. If I understand, that version will work as long as my destination drive is WD.
In Acronis, Clone Disk, probably use just Automatic to go from old to new. When done, take out old SSD, put new SSD in that slot. (I believe that this is the faster slot). Boot to UEFI to verify the new disk is the boot disk, then it should boot to Windows seamlessly. The C: Windows partition should be automatically larger, with the other partitions (System, Recovery) should be intact.
Maybe stick in the old SSD in the other slot to use as a backup.
Why don’t just put the new M.2 in the secondary slot and just move everything MSFS related to the M.2?
I 've done just that a few weeks ago.
Bought a 4 TB M.2 on Amazon (Samsung 990 Pro NVMe M.2), moved everything there and I am ready for another few years flying.
From what I understand, my current SSD is in the slot that has the fastest bus to the CPU. If I move Official and Community to a second drive with a slower bus, will I lose any performance?
Your way definitely seems faster/less risky to set up. If it makes little to no difference speed-wise, then I might have a change of plans.
If you’re going from Gen4 to Gen3 speeds then you’re not really going to notice any loss in speed. To be exact, you need to provide details on the 2 Nvme’s and the speed supported by each slot on the motherboard.
Some motherboards will disable certain SATA ports or PCIe slots (never PCIe_0) when one of the M.2 slots is used. My MSI motherboard had that ‘feature.’ It didn’t matter to me, because I didn’t need the slot.
If you need help determining whether yours does, share your exact motherboard model and I’ll look it up.
Create a recovery CD from Acronis
Use Acronis to image the old C: drive (make sure you get the full partition list). Store image on another internal drive, or external.
Power down, remove old drive and install new drive
Boot recovery CD
Restore image
I’m guessing the motherboard is the PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4, since that’s the only Aegis computer with the i7-13700F.
Unfortunately, the manual doesn’t have anything that refers to what I was talking about.
It does show 4 x M.2 slots.
M2_1, M2_2, M2_4 are all PCIe 4.0, while M2_3 is PCIe 3.0.
There very little info, and a lot of guessing amongst people on the internet about this. MSI simply doesn’t provide the info we need.
So I can only guess at whether anything is disabled if you were to fill all four M.2 slots. My guess (95% certain) is that if you only use M2_1 and M2_2 you won’t have any problems. Both will run at PCIe 4.0 speed.
You won’t saturate the PCI bus with just two drives.
I have a MSI Pro Z690-A WIFI DDR4. My primary drive is a 2TB nvme. My secondary is a 4TB NVME, where I put all my MSFS stuff. It works great. I suggest you just add a second nvme and move all your MSFS to that.
, I’m thinking of getting a new 2 or 3 TB SSD, probably a WD Black. Just want to make sure I have the migration steps right.
