DOCTOR
THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES...
> Cloning M.2 drives
> Rename files quickly
> Fix sync errors
Upgrade NVMe drive I want to swap out my M.2 NVMe 256GB boot drive for a 1TB one, as I’m constantly running out of space. I have one eye on a future PC upgrade, so I’m looking for a drive that will move with me. Can you recommend any models, and how would I go about transferring my Windows install from one to the other?
—Bryce A Lawson
THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: Bryce’s mobo only supports PCIe 3.0, which maxes out his read/write speeds at around 3 Gb/s. However, most PCIe 4.0 drives, which can read/write at over 7.5 Gb/s, are backward-compatible with PCIe 3.0. There is a premium for those top speeds—Samsung’s 990 PRO 1TB costs around $116 on www.newegg.com. If that’s too rich—particularly as you won’t get better than 3 Gb/s until you upgrade— then a range of PCIe 4.0 1TB drives that top out around 5 Gb/s costs around $65, including Crucial’s P3 Plus, or you can choose a budget-friendly option via Silicon Power’s UD90 range—its 1TB drive can be had for just $52.99 on newegg.
The question is how you clone the old drive to new— check your mobo’s specs to see if it has a spare NVMe slot. If so, fit the new drive, then use a free drive-cloning tool like Hasleo Backup Suite (www.easyuefi.com) to clone the old drive to new while booted into Windows. To do this, select Disk Clone under Clone. Select your old NVMe drive from the list, click Next, then select your new drive (identifiable by its size and being listed as ‘unallocated’), and click Next again.