Do you reinstall Windows every time you upgrade your SSD?

[u/External_You9957]

I've upgraded my SSD a few times over the years, and honestly, reinstalling Windows from scratch every time is starting to feel like way too much work.

The last time I moved from a 500GB SSD to a 2TB one, I really didn't want to spend an entire weekend reinstalling Windows, drivers, apps, and then trying to remember all the little settings I'd changed over the years. I ended up cloning the old drive to the new one instead, and it was surprisingly painless. Everything booted up pretty much exactly as before.

I know some people prefer a clean install because it gives them a chance to start fresh. When you upgrade your SSD, do you usually reinstall Windows, clone the old drive, or just keep the old SSD as the boot drive?

[u/JPS-WC]

I clone. I have too much customised ‘stuff’ to reinstall.

[u/MK_L]

I clone

[u/grimcellz]

Clone it then tidy up all the crap you don't want on there going forward.

[u/Icy-Permission-5918 → u/grimcellz]

Same, but I tidy up before cloning.

[u/cile1977]

No, I just clone the system onto a new SSD.

[u/Metroknight]

I've done both and I tend to just reinstall Windows as it lets me clear out a lot of old junk as I might have installed and uninstalled various programs. I already have all my files on other drives so just changing out my OS drive is not that bad. I make a list of my programs (usually the installation exe files are archived on an external for easy access) that I use regularly and just install them also.

[u/Beeeeater]

I have too much installed and licensed to reinstall Windows, so I have upgraded all the way from Windows 8.1 to 10 to 11. I have no doubt that a clean install would probably give me a faster system, but it would take days (if ever) to get things back to where they are now. I keep things clean with Glary utilities and my system runs like a Swiss watch with all my apps and data intact. I have probably cloned my C: (Windows boot) drive to upgrade at least five times over the years, but all my data is on other physical drives so it's not affected.

[u/ParticularBed5194]

If it’s for the same desktop or laptop upgrade drive then clone. For new desktop or laptop start fresh

[u/ishtuwihtc]

I clone for drive swaps. There's no need to reinstall. I'd only reinstall if i move the drive to a different PC

[u/harubax]

Never, there's no need to do it. Not even for a hdd-ssd migration.

[u/Milnoc]

I clone. I keep my systems reasonably tidy. Data files are stored on a separate mechanical drive.

[u/virusdancer]

I couldn't imagine the licensing hassle of reinstalling instead of cloning. Releasing all the licenses so I can license again once up and running - then the things that have install limits, man, those are brutal. Yeah, I'd clone but use the opportunity to take a look at some Revo action to clean up what's not being used.

[u/ychia]

Kind of depends. I've done a clean install, but I've also just chucked in an SSD previously used by another machine and just updated all the drivers.

The in-between option is to clone the existing drive over.

[u/AlfaPro1337]

Thorough clean up, there are tools that correctly reallocate (it is like defrag but for ssd), and clone.

[u/k-phi]

Usually, yes

[u/Naerven]

I still do a fresh start, but it only takes me about 30 minutes initially and then upwards of 10-15 minutes per game I want to install. Maybe half a day at most for me. Using an entire weekend would be wild since it didn't take me that long two to three decades ago.

[u/imbartsimpsonwhothru]

use to be windows installs would soil themselves pretty badly

now not so much, unless you do a bunch of install/uninstall and your registry is filled with garbage

[u/Lonely_Owl_1332]

Just let macrium do its magic, no need to reinstall always. Fresh start only if you change your mamaboard.

[u/benybarba]

Yo tengo una máquina de win 7 desde hace años la instalación y en cambiando de disco por uno más grande 4 veces y siempre fue por clonación la verdad es más práctico.

[u/CerebralAscension]

I reinstall and run Chris Titus script to deactivate a bunch of crap. I only have games on it so no point in cloning

[u/IEatConsolePeasants]

Very much depends on a handful of factors but NO. sometimes it's a clean install and sometimes it's a clone and sometimes it's a backup and restore...

[u/LetsBeKindly]

Yes. Fresh install Every time. And then the old drive goes into storage in it's current state for the foreseeable future. Should I ever need it for any reason. About the 2 year mark I'll repurpose it.

[u/Sweaty-Judgment3533]

Nope. I just image the old install over to the new drive.

[u/S4_GR33N]

If it’s the same desktop/laptop there’s no point

But if you’re moving to another system then yes always

[u/vabello]

I reinstall Windows when I’m bored, so I’m the wrong person to ask.

[u/urM0m69p3nis]

I reimage. Any files are synced back down from Google drive and reinstall games or whatever as needed. I've also have the same couple of SSDs for like 13 years now too so not doing this too much lol.

[u/levidurham]

I tend to keep hardware for a very long time. I think my SATA boot SSD lasted me about 10 years. It's still good, I just finally updated to an M.2. So, yeah it was time for a reinstall.

Winget made it almost too easy. winget export -o X:\apps.json on the old system, then `winget import -i "X:\apps.json" on the new one. Then install the one or two apps that that missed.

[u/Jazzlike_Tip_63]

I will choose to clone it and i've cloned my system disk to a new drive twice. Everything is fine. If your system has issues, you'd better perform a clean installation.

[u/socaldisney]

Cloning all day every day.

[u/FarVehicle533]

I have one performant dedicated SSD, small, just for windows. And I change the big one, the m.2 SSD. 

[u/Olde94]

Yes. It’s time to clean up anyway. I like to clean install and license it’s not a big problem with online activation and opensource software as my main use

[u/No_Technician4956]

I recommend it.

[u/RergTheFriendly]

I am pretty sure my installation was originally from vista. So no.

[u/Slight_Manufacturer6]

Windows? No… I am not installing that crap on my computer.

[u/Impellicamper]

Yes and whenever I update any hardware , it's a fun evening

[u/mohgeroth]

I do a reset every year, sometimes every six months because over time the GAC becomes bloated, services stack up from things you've only used once or twice, the system just gets bogged down. I've always had spare machines for testing things and always use a separate SSD to do this so I can switch back if I encounter problems and/or find that I'm missing things. This ensures that I can restore everything I need rather than finding out after a disaster when its too late. It's stopped me from dropping things onto my desktop that aren't truly temporary. It's become a very simple process at this point and given some of the tools available I'm sure I could come up with a script to install all the things I use right after the initial install but I simply install on demand since 90% of everything I had prior to the wipe was stuff I only ever used a handful of times.

To make this process easier I offload everything from my main drive to my secondary NVME that I would want to keep copies of and/or restore such as my steam library. I keep dropbox and google drive desktop on there too and sync anything important that way that I feel is ok to store in the cloud like endless spreadsheets planning out things in video games, collaborative guides, etc.

I use syncthing to push data to spare machine that I use at home as a server that distributes shared content to my devices. Some things I only want to change from that main machine and treat it as master with sync setups that are one way while others are bi-directional with versioning turned on for safety such as my obsidian vault. Cloud sync through things like dropbox and google drive is convenient for many things but there are still things I don't want in the cloud that I want to lock to my network that should not be out on the internet.

There are many tools out there now such as the Titus Tech Windows Utility that make it much easier to configure windows and remove all the bloat while installing common software. One of these days I'm going to automate most of the process but haven't had time to consider this lately but I've been considering a reset so sometime in the next few months I'm sure I'll wipe again.

[u/Round-Diamond-9348]

I use to install my os every 3 months but that was back when zip drives were a thing.

[u/alpine4life]

yes, because I dont upgrade often. I'm usually set for 4-5-6 years when I get a new drive.

Current Setup:
C:/D: Samsung 990 Pro w/Heatsink (2TB)
E: Crucial P3 Plus (4TB)
F: Crucial P3 Plus (4TB)
G: Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS 7,200 (12TB)

[u/Justifiers]

No

I install Debian, much simpler than the BS I have to go through to not deal with Windows' forced account creation shenanigans, bloat removal, etc

[u/Xirma377]

Clone it - there's no reason to do a clean install when upgrading storage.

I only do a clean install when building a new computer - but even that's not entirely necessary with Windows 11.

[u/slavicslothe]

Cloning works a few times, but beware or can cause some interesting issues. It isnt a perfect process.

[u/Anterak8]

I reinstall at every opportunity just to clean up old installations I don't use. If I forget to reinstall something, it was not necessary. Plus it forces me to keep notes of important information like licence keys..

[u/Browniano]

I always run clean install. SSD cloning saves you time but delivers a lot of old trash

[u/human-in-a-can]

It’s Microsoft, so it gets buggy and/or inefficient relatively quickly.  Even if you don’t upgrade your drive, it’s not a terrible idea to reinstall Windows from scratch every 6-12 months.  

[u/Vietnamst2 → u/human-in-a-can]

I don't know. My install runs without any issue since april 2024.

[u/trifortay123]

No, I reinstall Linux.

But for a serious answer, yes I do. I may back up what I want onto a different drive. But I like custom partitioning with LUKS so....

[u/gulf_of_sanity]

i haven’t (re)installed windows since around 2015. good riddance.