Installing an solid-state disk is one of the best way to upgrade Windows which we are quite familiar. However, migrating your Windows installation to a small disk must be more complicated, because the data won't necessarily all fit on the new disk. Here in this artile, you'll know how to clone to an Solid State disk without reinstalling Windows.
Are you tired of slow boot times and sluggish performance on your PC? Upgrading your hard drive from an HDD to an SSD could be the solution you need to improve your computer's speed and overall performance. But if you have a lot of important data on your old hard drive and don't want to go through the hassle of reinstalling the operating system, disk cloning software can save you time and effort.
Cloning an HDD to an SSD is a simple and efficient process that can save you time and effort. In this guide, we'll show you how to clone a hard drive to SSD without any headaches. We'll also explain the benefits of using an SSD over an HDD and how it can improve your PC's performance.
🧩Extend Reading: How to Clone M.2 SSD with Only One Slot
Before you start, there are some preparations you need to make to have a smooth cloning process:
With the Windows easiest disk cloning software - EaseUS Disk Copy, you can effortlessly clone your hard disk, be it the system disk or data disk, to an SSD at an incredibly fast speed. Here's a tested time that was spent on SSDs of different sizes.
| What we tested | Results |
| What devices do we use | 1 Lenovo laptop and 1 Dell Desktop computer |
| Hard drive types and numbers we tested | 1SATA SSD, 2 NVMe SSDs, 5 M.2 SSDs, 2 SATA HDDs |
| How long does it take to clone a 1TB drive to SSD | ≈17min |
If you have any questions about the cloning time on different sizes of hard drives, check this post for answers: How long does it take to clone a hard drive to SSD?
If files exist on your SSD, back it up (EaseUS Todo Backup can help) before the disk clone. Cloning an HDD to the SSD will erase all the data on the target device.
Make sure the capacity of the SSD exceeds the used space on your HDD, or there will be boot issues or data loss after cloning the HDD to your SSD.
E.g, The used disk space on HDD is 151.79 GB, so your SSD capacity should be more significant than the used size, at least 152 GB. Here is a complete guide about how to check disk usage in Windows.
Ensure the target disk's partition style is in accordance with the source disk. If not, you must convert from MBR to GPT or vice versa.
To check the partition style of the HDD and SSD:
Step 1. Connect the HDD/SSD to a computer.
Step 2. Right-click "This PC" and choose "Manage" > "Disk Management".
Step 3. Right-click on your disk and select "Properties".
Step 4. Switch to the "Volumes" tab. Under Disk Information, you can see the partition style of your disk.
How to Backup SSD to External Hard Drive/HDD
This Ultimate guide from EaseUS will introduce three effective and simple ways to back up your SSD to an external hard drive with stepwise instructions. Keep reading and ensure your operating system on SSD is protected.. Read more >>
Meet all the requirements above? You can clone your HDD to an SSD following the guide below.
🛠️Tools you need: a screwdriver, a Power Splitter Adapter cable, a SATA cable or an USB to SATA adapter. Make sure the target HDD/SSD is larger than the used space of the current drive. For M.2 SSD, you need to idenfity if there is a PCIe slot for connection.
EaseUS Disk Copy is the cloning software that integrates multiple functions, including system clone, disk clone, and partition clone. In the disk clone field, this tool stands out due to the following aspects:
Step 1: In "Disk Mode", select the HDD that you want to clone.
Step 2: Select the SSD as your destination.
Step 3: Edit the disk layout and then click "Proceed" to continue.
As the destination is an SSD, you are suggested to tick "Check the option if the target is SSD".
A warning message tells you that the data on the SSD will be erased. Click "OK" to continue if you do not have important data on the destination disk.
Step 4: Wait for the process to complete.
Option 1. If you want to keep both the old disk and the new disk
Option 2. If you want to only keep the new disk
You may have noticed a system clone option in EaseUS Disk Copy when you connect a new blank disk to your computer, which enables you to clone your Windows from one disk to another. If the used space on your HDD is larger than the total size of your SSD, which is quite common, you can consider migrating OS to your SSD only. If your SSD is larger than the used space on your system and boot drive, you can clone the OS from your HDD to the SSD without any boot issues. As for the other partitions on the HDD, you can either manually copy the files to another hard disk or use the partition clone feature in EaseUS Disk Copy to get things done.
When upgrading your hard drive, you can either migrate the hard drive to a larger one or from an HDD to an SSD, depending on the hard drive used. If your hard drive is for data storage, switching to a bigger HDD could be quite helpful to store much more content. However, if your hard drive is a system disk, learning how to install an SSD without reinstalling Windows is a more advisable choice, for you can boost your computer performance to a great extent.
Structurally, an SSD is flash storage with no moving parts, while an HDD is a magnetic storage with mechanical parts inside. That means SSDs are much smaller than HDDs in size and capacity. Although SSDs have less capacity, there are multiple advantages of SSDs that will make you think the defect of size is negligible based on the technology they use:
More directly, with an SSD installed on your computer as the system disk:
Based on the information above, it's wise to clone your existing HDD to an SSD. Then comes the question of how to clone an HDD to an SSD. As far as I know, no built-in tool in Windows allows you to clone a hard drive to an SSD. Luckily, there is third-party software for you to finish the task.
Replace C Drive with SSD for Windows 11/10/8/7 [Without Data Loss]
A solid-state drive(SSD) will significantly improve your computer's startup time, shutdown time, and overall speed. This article will show you how to replace a C drive with an SSD on a Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7 computer.
Although many users can successfully clone an HDD to an SSD, there are always some expectations. Here, we list some frequently asked questions and the corresponding solutions if needed.
The causes of disk boot issues are various. I'll show you three situations.
You can manually select the disk or partition to clone using the "Clone" feature in EaseUS Disk Copy. However, by manual selection, you may choose the C drive only when you attempt to clone the Windows operating system from your HDD to the SSD. That will undoubtedly cause boot issues if the system partition and boot partition are different. (For your information, the boot partition is a primary partition with the boot loader used to boot the system. The system partition is a partition that contains the OS folder. Both are necessary for booting your computer.) You can contact our support team (support@todo-backup.com) for remote assistance if that's your case. They will help you create the system partition, solving the boot issue.
When you try to clone an HDD to an SSD, you may connect the HDD to a computer and make the source disk a USB drive. In such a case, you must edit BCD (Boot Configuration Data, which helps to make the Windows system partition bootable) on the cloned SSD. You can refer to the official document from Microsoft for a detailed guide on editing BCD.
Another culprit for disk boot issues after disk cloning is the lack of a necessary driver. Fortunately, you can add the driver to use DSIM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management), a Windows built-in command-line tool. Also, you can refer to the official document from Microsoft for help.
If there is any situation you cannot handle after cloning your HDD to an SSD using EaseUS Disk Copy, feel free to contact our support team (support@todo-backup.com) for assistance.
The software installed on your system disk may ask for activation after you clone the HDD to SSD. Here, you will need to contact the software producer. They will help you reactivate the software.
It happens that your SSD is misaligned after the disk cloning. Misalignment will reduce the performance of your SSD. Thus, if your SSD is misaligned, you can use the 4K alignment feature in the free partition manager - EaseUS Partition Master to align sectors on your SSD. You can check the alignment of your SSD by following the steps below:
Step 1. Press "Windows + R" and enter msinfor32.
Step 2. Go to "Components" > "Storage" > "Disks".
Step 3. Check the value of "Partition Starting Offset". If the value is not divisible by 4096, your SSD is misaligned.
To minimize the possible issues, I recommend strictly following the guidelines to clone an HDD to an SSD. Contact our support team if you have encountered unexpected problems you cannot fix after using EaseUS Disk Copy.
SSD performs better than HDD in many aspects, so most people choose to replace HDD with an SSD. You can clone HDD to SSD in Windows 11/10/8/7 with disk clone software, like EaseUS Disk Copy and EaseUS Todo Backup, to clone your hard drive to SSD.
Whether EaseUS Disk Copy or EaseUS Todo Backup will clone the OS and all the boot-related partitions or files to ensure it's bootable. So you can use it to clone a hard drive with confidence.
If you want to clone HDD to SSD without OS, use a USB bootable disk cloning software, like EaseUS Disk Copy, to access the unbootable computer and clone the hard drive. Then follow the steps below:
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