Edge Computing Division Users Forum

Hi,

I just bought a couple of auto-on Diskless Fit-PC2's. I am planning to outfit them SSD drives. Since I already have a fitpc running the system we need, I was planning to clone my current fitpc system for onto the drives for the new computers. The quickest route I can think of to do this is listed below. Can anyone make any suggestions for improvements or give me a guess as to if this will work?

Thanks in advance,

Tim

Steps:
(1) Install Acronis True Image Home11 on existing fitpc2
(2) Create a complete backup image of existing system using Acronis
(3) Copy disk image to desktop pc
(4) Plug new 80GB ssd into a spare SATA port on desktop pc
(5) Restore disk image to SSD
(6) Plug SSD into new diskless fitpc2

(sounds simple doesn't it)

You can use HDclone Free version (http://www.miray.de) and probably save 1-2 steps:

1) Download HDClone Free edition to your PC (does not require installation).
2) Remove existing Fit-PC2 disk and plug it into the PC
3) Create a complete Fit-PC2 disk backup to PC using HDclone
4) Unplug existing Fit-PC2 disk from the PC, and plug the new SSD
5) Restore HDclone image to new SSD; repeat

There's a catch to all this which is that the Fit-pc2 I cloning has a 160Gb hard drive and the new one has a 80GB SSD. Of course the OS and our system take way less than 80GB but I haven't come across an easy way to downsize an existing partition and drop it onto a different sized disk. Some backup software can expand to fit a partition, but I haven't seen one that can shrink it, even if there is a lot of empty space on the disk. Anyone got any good tricks or suggestions for doing this?

Thanks!

Norton Ghost can do it (shrink the partition), but it costs money.
Actually with Norton Ghost you even do not need another PC.
You can boot Norton Ghost off a USB stick with DOS.