Cluster

Windows 7 - Moving to SSD

Windows

Want to move your current disk image onto a SSD drive?

Quick, easy and free. Also aligns disk sectors :)

  1. Tidy up your current HDD - delete / move any unneeded items to an archive disk
  2. Shrink the C volume to under the size of the SSD (you do not need to shrink as small as possible, just shrink just under SSD size)
  3. Run Windows Backup (win7 backup is very good, i.e. image backup) onto external USB Drive
  4. Remove your current HDD and install SSD
  5. Restore via Windows Backup — Boot install DVD, and choose Repair your computer, then select recover from windows backup image (use the image you backed up onto your USB drive).
  6. Reboot, then expand the C volume to consume the full space of the SSD

Done.

vmware and NLB (unicast vs multicast)

Networking, Virtual

Thought I’d get a bit of clarification around this one. VMWare states –

VMware recommends that you use multicast mode, because unicast mode forces the physical switches on the LAN to broadcast all Network Load Balancing traffic to every machine on the LAN.

There are some issues which come to the surface if you are using unicast. Where possible we should always try to use a Multicast NLB as Unicast can cause some complications around vSwitch configurations. (requirement to change switch notifications to “No” – and seemingly break port id teaming). Detail below;