Migrate vs clone Windows partition to new SSD

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by jdxjohn, Oct 20, 2014.

  1. jdxjohn

    jdxjohn Member

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    I'm going to be adding a new SSD to my brand-new Mac-Mini. I have a Windows 7 PC I plan to migrate to this Mac, ideally with the option to run through Parallels AND BootCamp - the former for general use and the latter if I need bare-metal access for 3D graphics software I develop.

    I wondered if an alternative to migrating this 150Gb disk image - which I fear will be slow - would be to clone it to the brand new SSD before I fit the SSD to the new Mac. I figure it would be quicker to copy in this manner, and means the Windows partition is on the drive already. But I don't know enough about how Bootcamp and Macs and Parallels work with partitions to be sure this would work. Would Parallels and/or BootCamp allow me to convert/mount this Windows partition if done in this manner? My understanding is that to work in BootCamp and Parallels, it's preferred to set up the partition as a BootCamp drive first then load into Parallels rather than vice versa (unless v10 changes this, I am used to v8).

    Thanks for any advice, I hope it isn't a stupid question!
     

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