How to clone existing fit-pc to new diskless FitPC with SSD?

[TimeScience]

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)

[yogev_ezra]

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

[TimeScience]

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!

[yogev_ezra]

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.