transfer old ssd info to new computer with pcie

i've searched here and found bits and pieces of what i'm trying to do but not sure if i've got it right.
I have a five year old Dell Inspiron laptop whose casing is breaking. it boots from a crucial ssd running windows 10 home most recent version as of today. i would replace it with a dell xps 15 that boots from a pcie of the same size. there is so much on the current ssd that i want the same that i would like to just transfer everything to the new pcie.

i have cloned from one ssd to a larger one going into the same laptop, and i have at some time in the past taken an ssd from one laptop and, after booting and bringing a new laptop up to date and registered windows, put the old ssd into the new laptop with some but not too much trouble.

can i do the same with the pcie? does the ssd have to be cloned to the pcie on the old machine via pcie to usb connection to transfer it, or can i use the ssd as a usb drive on the new machine with pcie as boot and clone/image that way? What else should i be aware of?

thanks.

You use the term "the pcie" in several places.

Do you mean an M.2 SSD?

Or something else?

"1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive"

thanks

bdogg said:

there is so much on the current ssd that i want the same that i would like to just transfer everything to the new pcie.

I'm sure that can be done...........one way or another.

I assume you want to do that because it will save you the time required to configure the new unfamiliar laptop to be the same as the current familiar laptop.

But I'd urge you to consider going the traditional simpler route....using the new laptop as is with the M.2 drive and the fresh Windows install that presumably will be on it when it arrives.

You just have to make a considered judgement about the how much time you'd ultimately save considering the learning curve involved..............compared to whatever headaches you'd avoid by not getting involved in cloning, imaging, swapping, USB, and the rest of it.

If you save 100 hours, sure. If you save 10 or 20 hours, maybe not.

Maybe even consider doing a clean install on the new machine the day it arrives.

Thanks. There are so many programs and configuration parameters configured that it would be easier to just move everything as is. And some may be no longer available or at least hard to find. But if its not possible will go through the clean install. but the previous transfers, especially to the same machine, were really quick and easy.

First thing I'd do is make an image of all partitions on the new PC as soon as it arrives, before any fiddling...........so that in a worst case scenario you can revert to that.

Save that image on an external.

May as well make a second image of all partitions on the current laptop with the standard SSD. Saved to external as well.

Get yourself up to speed on Macrium if you haven't yet. Learning curve.

Imaging generally is less problematic than cloning. Either could work or fail.

Win 10 is said to be quite forgiving of outright swapping of SSD from old machine to new machine, but I have no personal experience. May have driver issues.

thanks ignatzatsonic. i would of course image both just in case before doing anything. and i've used macrium before, although i liked minitool partition manager better in the past.

Are you going to junk the old laptop?

I'd at least try to salvage its hard drive to use as a fast external connected by cable.

Quite portable and likely a lot faster than any USB flash drive. I rigged one up using a 500 GB NVMe like your new laptop will have.

I plan to keep using the old laptop. the innerds work fine, but the outer casing is duct taped together and i don't know how long that will last. they happen to have a sale on xps 15 this week at dell so i was looking for a replacement.