Copying install from SSD to NVME to ditch Windows completely

A few days ago I installed CachyOS and with some minor headaches I have got it running the way I need it to run. So… I think I’m ready to ditch Windows entirely.

Right now I am dual booting with Windows 11 on an NVME and CachyOS on an SSD. What I would like to do is to pull that Windows NVME (a backup just in case), install a new NVME and copy my CachyOS install onto it. When I installed CachyOS, I chose to install rEFInd as that seemed to be the most straightforward option.

Can I simply clone the CachyOS SSD to the new NVME, and if so, what program would be the best option?

I have not (well I think I did once) done this, but I believe just using dd as you might when copying an ISO to a thumb drive does work.

Some things to consider:

  • you should be capable of editing the EFI boot entries
  • do both have the same physical sector size? NVMEs typically have 4k sectors and going native speeds up I/O
  • while dd copies over the data, you have to make sure you find and replace all disk/partition UUIDs from the old to the new copy, otherwise references break
  • examine how /boot is set up
  • make backups you know you can roll back to and have the skillset to do so

Hmmm… It’s almost sounding like I might just start from scratch again. It’s not like I have gone too crazy installing stuff.

That’s usually the simplest way.