Replacing HDD system drive with SSD

I am about to replace my system HDD with an SSD (Samsung Pro 850 512GB)

It’s my understanding that Samsung has a way or some software to basically make this transition without having to re-install everything.

Has anyone used this method / software ?

Would you recommend a complete fresh install of everything from the ground up, or can I make the change without having to re-install?

Check out this link: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html

There’s a freeware package called “Macrium Reflect” I’ve used that to clone dozens of drives - never had a problem.

Plug new drive in to spare sata port (or use USB converter) clone current drive - shutdown and swap over - done.

If the new drive is bigger you can use another freeware product post copying (Minitool Partition wizard) to resize the partition accordingly.

You should have projects and sample libraries on separate drives to this, so ANYTHING more than a 120GB is wasted for an OS drive.

Just make sure you:
a) Do not install any sample libraries on it, including the 10+GB that Cubase installs there by default.
b) Turn off Hibernation, AND then delete the file.
c) Have plenty of RAM for your needs, and set virtual memory to just a couple of GB.

I have a dual-boot Win 8.1 system, and both 120GB OS drives have enough spare room to keep a spare partition of 30GB+ (good for Windows, program or driver installation files, just in case).