1

I just installed an SSD next to an already existing HDD on my laptop. It is a dualboot system with Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04. I already cloned the Windows and boot partitions to the SSD with success, so when the laptop starts it directly goes to GRUB on the SSD with the options to start Ubuntu or start Windows 10 through a chainloader (because of EFI). The Ubuntu install itself is still on the HDD, but with a seperate root and home partition. Both operating systems work.

Now, what I want to do to boot faster into Ubuntu is to move the root partition to the SSD. I don't want to reinstall Ubuntu. What's the best way to go about this?

Nkciy84
  • 977
  • 1
    Since all your settings are in /home, really easier/better to reinstall. You cannot use dd on a partition when drive is gpt partitioned. I just installed 19.04 in another ext4 partition on my HDD, with 18.04 on SSD. It took all of about 10 min to install, and less than an hour to reconfigure and install all apps from list I exported. others may suggest Clonezilla which I never have used. But make sure it does not duplicate UUID & GUIDs as that is often an issue with clones. – oldfred Dec 01 '18 at 14:53
  • Yeah, I agree it's probably cleaner this way. How did you export the list of installed apps? Also, I don't want to use Clonezilla or any other program if I did want to go through with it. Just copying,cuttin, pasting and editing files manually. – Nkciy84 Dec 01 '18 at 14:56
  • 1
    My export of apps is part of my rsync backup, so always current. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReinstallingSamePackages & https://askubuntu.com/questions/17823/how-to-list-all-installed-packages I do keep /home, but no data on SSD's / partition. And all data is in a separate data partition on HDD. Then user configs also load quickly. And I can mount data in all my installs, and can test other configurations without modifying my main working install. – oldfred Dec 01 '18 at 15:15
  • Thanks, will check those out and get to work in a few minutes. When you said you don't keep your data on the SSD but you do keep /home on the SSD, does it mean you make symlinks to the documents, downloads, etc. folders? That does sound very logical. – Nkciy84 Dec 01 '18 at 15:22
  • You might even try the copy/paste options in gparted. Otherwise, you can use Clonezilla to copy partitions. – heynnema Dec 01 '18 at 18:24
  • @heynnema that sounds pretty easy and all. My only concern is partitions not being able to find eachother. – Nkciy84 Dec 01 '18 at 18:39
  • The only thing that I can think of is that you may have to edit /etc/fstab with the correct UUID (or /dev/sdax) numbers to match the new partitions. I don't know if gparted/clonezilla assigns new UUIDs. And maybe update GRUB. – heynnema Dec 01 '18 at 18:43
  • Primarily because I have multiple installs, I symlink my data from a data partition into all my installs, but each install has its /home inside /, since only the mostly hidden files & folders are still in /home. I even moved Firefox & Thunderbird profiles to data partition since larger, particularly if not housecleaned. Years ago when I still had XP I started with a shared NTFS partition, now no Windows so only ext4 shared data. https://askubuntu.com/questions/223655/windows-ubuntu-dual-boot-share-files-between-os/223670#223670 – oldfred Dec 01 '18 at 23:08

1 Answers1

0

The cleanest way is to reinstall on SSD. Create 2 partitions on SSD, one for / and other /home, boot new version, reinstall the apps, then copy all user's content from old HDD into SSD's /home/ folder.

Ionut Neicu
  • 1