Question: My current situation is:

* One hard disk
* Dual boot Ubuntu 11.04 and Windows 7. Partitions:
	+ 100MB Windows System thingy
	+ 144GB Main Windows
	+ 160GB Ubuntu
	+ 4GB Swap
	+ 12GB System Restore stuff

Now I want to install an 80GB SSD and move Ubuntu to it. AFAIK I need to:

* Shrink the 160GB Ubuntu partition to 80GB
* Copy it over to the SSD
* Change `fstab` to mount the SSD as `/`

How do I do the second? And what do I need to do about Grub?

Answer: 
1) Copying files
================

You want to copy the FILES, not the whole partition ( including its free space ), so you don't need to resize the partition first. Boot from the livecd and mount both the HD and SSD ( after formatting a partition on the SSD of course ), then copy all of the files over:

```
sudo cp -Tax /media/hd /media/ssd

```

Use the correct names for the hd and ssd mount points of course. Then you just need to edit the /etc/fstab on the ssd to point to the new fs UUID ( you can look it up with `blkid` ). Finally you need to install grub on the ssd. 

2) Dealing with GRUB
====================

a) Command line:
----------------

```
sudo -s
for f in sys dev proc ; do mount --bind /$f /media/ssd/$f ; done
chroot /media/ssd
grub-install /dev/ssd
update-grub

```

Of course, use the correct device for /dev/ssd. The whole disk, not a partition number. 

b) "Recommended repair" magic button in Boot-Repair:
----------------------------------------------------

<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair>

```
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair

```

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Emng.png)

Finally reboot and make sure your bios is set to boot from the SSD.
Here is as good (for 2018) as easy how-to from 2013: <http://www.sesser.eu/howtos/hdd2ssd.php> by Markus Sesser.
But you should read 1st comment here about `--exclude "sys"` - thanks to @em2er !

It describes migration without booting from live CD. It also respects system dirs and uses **rsync**, **noatime**, **nodiratime**. Just do not forget to omit **discard** option - it is implemented via cron since Ubuntu 14.04.

Short plan from article:

1. partition and mount the SSD.
I recommend single ext4 on gpt
2. cleanup source HDD
3. sync data (**rsync**)
4. tune **fstab**. Also if you will keep HDD in system then I recommend move /home onto SSD while keep user data (~/Video, ~/Audio, etc.) on HDD
5. install **grub**