I have set up an Acer VA 70 Laptop ( i5 8GB RAM)  as my portable studio second DAW. 
The Acer came with a 500 GB main drive and that's what I have everything on. I had done a fresh install of W7 and built up from there with only recording stuff. As you all know this takes a lot of time these days. 
Everything works better than expected but-- I need to put an SSD drive in it as it takes a good minute to boot up. I'm not used to that anymore :( 
 
Normally I would just start over again, but my version of W7 takes a lot of updating to come up to speed and there is all this 3rd party authorization stuff... . So I'm thinking of a disk image and simply swapping the drives. 
I have Easeus free version which claims it can do this.  https://www.easeus.com/backup-software/?ad&gclid=Cj0KCQiAzrTUBRCnARIsAL0mqcxkwL_R2kMozQyIkP5CvzOzeDFimh5MMNyRpd-n5SrEKv7RAUDrEuwaAsiREALw_wcB
 
I've used it for backups but have never done an image before. Is it that simple? 
Any advice would be much appreciated. 

I've used Reflect for a coupla SSD conversions with no problems.  Backup/restore works better than cloning for this IMX
 

Guys,
 
Just struggling to understand this now. Very timely post for me.
 
Have the licensed version of Acronis 2015 on 3 computers, and it is a bunch of crap. Will not clone anything without failure messages or a 2 minute restart taking everything back to the OS without anything cloned. Either from the OS or from their rescue disc. Acronis 2012 did seem to work.
 
Todo free backup in earlier versions is solid and let you clone TO an external disc, but had you caught ransomed if you tried to clone back FROM the image where they flashed that the function was only available with the paid version. Even had the mercy to direct you to the website to pay 30 dollars or whatever. Don't know if this has changed.
 
Today did an image copy using the win 7 internal thing, and created a separate CD rescue disc to facilitate reinstall of the system image. Seems to have worked, but have not tried to reinstall yet from the external hard drive..
 
My question, from win 7 to win 10, is there anything needed beyond the native image cloning tool that is already provided. Do we really need any external third party software any more? Anybody with any experience with how reliable the windows included image burner is?
 
John

I swapped my hard drive for a Samsung EVO SSD a couple years ago.  The supplied Samsung cloning utility got the job done and it was painless. 
 
1. Cloned my hard drive to the new drive.  Two ways to connect: a) use a USB adapter for the new drive for the cloning process (probably the only option with laptop);  or b) use a spare SATA port on a desktop.
2. Swap drives, new for old.
3. Boot from the new drive.  Done!
 
It is important to understand the difference between cloning and imaging.  Some tools can do either method.
 
1. Cloning makes a complete copy of the hard drive onto another drive as a mirror image, ready to go.
2. Imaging uses a process similar to cloning, but the drive copy ends up in a file container, called an image file.  This file is portable and you can store multiple images on a single drive as an image repository.  These images contain exact representations of the source drive, but are not 'ready to go'.  The image file must first be restored to a suitable target drive before it can be booted from.

Thanks abacab.
 
Still fuzzy on the difference and had seen a reference like you said to having multiple "images" on a disc.
From the standpoint of recovering from a meltdown where you may have to transfer an image or a clone to say a new hard drive, any advantages one over the other?
Clueless in Seattle (or close to there anyway)
 
John

JohnKenn
Thanks abacab.
 
Still fuzzy on the difference and had seen a reference like you said to having multiple "images" on a disc.
From the standpoint of recovering from a meltdown where you may have to transfer an image or a clone to say a new hard drive, any advantages one over the other?
Clueless in Seattle (or close to there anyway)
 
John

You don't 'transfer' a clone.  A cloned drive is a one for one physical drive.  You can swap a cloned drive with the original, for example, by physically unplugging the cables and moving things around.
 
Having an 'image' is a way of storing the complete contents of a drive in a file container.  When you restore an image file to a new or exiting disk, you will then have a clone of the source drive, but only once you have completed the 'restore' job with your chosen app.
 
So for upgrading disk hardware, the 'cloning' method is the most direct way to go.
 
For system backup and recovery however, drive 'imaging' is more practical.  You can store multiple versions of the drive image file on a large external drive.  For example, full daily, weekly, & monthly images can be scheduled and retained, while setting limits on the max number of each before the oldest gets deleted.  That helps you manage the space on the backup drive. 
 
I have used several programs for this over the years, including Acronis and the built in Windows 7 image.  But currently I am using Macrium Reflect Free, which fully meets my needs.
 
A nice feature here is that you can directly mount any Macrium image as a virtual drive with a Windows drive letter (by double clicking the image file name), allowing you to browse the files & folders in an image file, and copy them anywhere with drag and drop.  Since I take daily images, I can skip file backups this way, and recover anything I might want from an image file without restoring it. 

Abacab,
Good explanation. Think I got a handle on it now. Thanks for your time and for the information on Macrium.
John

JohnKenn
Abacab,
Good explanation. Think I got a handle on it now. Thanks for your time and for the information on Macrium.
John

 
Great, good luck with that!
 
The only real shortcoming with Macrium Reflect Free is that you cannot post on their support forum without a paid license.  But it is a fairly full featured product that should meet most home user needs.  https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
 
The bright side is that the user guide is very well written and explains everything.  Complete user guide in HTML and PDF formats >> https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/

Thanks Abacab, The new SSD is a Samsung Evo and I never looked on the disk that came with it so your method is exactly what I will do. I'm lucky as this laptop actually has a second drive bay which I can easily use. I'll just put the new drive in there and go at it. Thanks this made it easier than I thought. 
 
Only issue I have to deal with is I allowed all the VST libraries like Air and Dim pro to go to the C drive as it was big enough. The SSD is only a 240 so I'll have to move the libraries first.. that will be fun and games. 
 

Cactus Music
Thanks Abacab, The new SSD is a Samsung Evo and I never looked on the disk that came with it so your method is exactly what I will do. I'm lucky as this laptop actually has a second drive bay which I can easily use. I'll just put the new drive in there and go at it. Thanks this made it easier than I thought. 
 
Only issue I have to deal with is I allowed all the VST libraries like Air and Dim pro to go to the C drive as it was big enough. The SSD is only a 240 so I'll have to move the libraries first.. that will be fun and games. 
 

Just a quick heads up about the dual drive bay setup in the laptop. 
 
I have heard reports that you should only have one drive connected when you attempt to boot with the new SSD, until the BIOS gets things sorted out with the new SSD in the boot position.
 
Apparently just swapping the drives after the cloning process can confuse the BIOS, so that it may not recognize and boot from the SSD, if it can still detect the original boot drive.