Numerous exceptional programs exist for backing up your files, but sometimes you require a solution that goes beyond ordinary measures. Whether you’re transferring your Windows installation to a different drive or seeking an exact duplicate for contingency purposes, the optimal choice is to clone your hard drive. This process creates an identical replica that can be effortlessly swapped in and booted up, providing unparalleled reliability.
Furthermore, if you plan to upgrade to a larger capacity drive, hard drive cloning offers a convenient way to transfer all your data and settings from the old drive to the new one. This ensures a smooth and seamless transition without the need to reinstall everything from scratch.
Here comes a question: how to perform hard drive cloning?
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You need the help of specialized cloning software.
Criteria for selecting disk clone software
When selecting a hard drive cloning application, it’s essential to consider several standards to ensure you get a full-featured, easy-to-use, and reliable tool. Please refer to the following criteria:
Support diverse disk types
Hard drives come in different types, offering varying storage capacities, cost ranges, form factors, and interface types. In the process of cloning, you may encounter scenarios where you need to transfer data between different disk types, such as clone hard drive to an SSD, or clone a SATA SSD to an M.2 SSD. A robust cloning program should possess the capability to facilitate smooth data transfer between these diverse disk types.
Moreover, when you need to clone an MBR disk to a GPT disk or vice versa, a tool that can perform the disk clone without requiring you to convert the partition style beforehand will save you a considerable amount of effort.
Clone between different sizes
Numerous users clone smaller drives to larger ones to gain additional storage space. However, if you don’t resize partitions on the destination drive after cloning, you’ll end up with unallocated space that cannot be used to store information. Therefore, a reliable cloning tool that enables you to edit partitions during the cloning process is necessary.
Furthermore, some users may need to copy a larger drive to a smaller one. In this scenario, a capable hard drive cloning software is essential, one that allows you to clone only the utilized areas on the source drive.
4K alignment for SSD
When upgrading a hard drive, SSDs are a popular choice due to their advantages. One notable distinction between HDDs and SSDs is that SSDs use 4K alignment, leading to significantly reduced reading and writing times. Therefore, it is crucial to have a disk cloning software that can ensure the SSD is 4K-aligned during the cloning process, optimizing its performance.
Upon comparing various clone software available on the market, I have discovered that AOMEI Backupper Professional satisfies all the previously mentioned requirements.Now, let’s proceed to the steps for using AOMEI Backupper Professional for hard drive cloning.
How to transfer everything from HDD to SSD
Suppose you wish to clone HDD to PNY SSD. Firstly, connect the PNY SSD with your PC. You have two options: connect it internally using a drive bay or externally using a SATA-to-USB adapter. Additionally, make sure to back up any files on the SSD if it contains important data. Once that’s done, follow the instructions provided below:
Step 1. Download, install, and launch the designated disk clone software on your PC. Then, proceed to choose Disk Clone under the Clone tab.
Step 2. From the Source Disk page, choose you rPC’s old hard drive. Click Next to proceed.
Step 3. On the Destination Disk page, select the newly connected PNY SSD and click Next.
Step 4. For improved read and write speeds on the SSD, it is advisable to enable the SSD Alignment option. Finally, click Start Clone to initiate copying data from the HDD to the PNY SSD.
Once the cloning process is complete, you can set your PC to boot from the cloned SSD by adjusting the boot order in the BIOS. Additionally, if you are cloning a system disk from MBR to GPT or vice versa, remember to modify the boot mode accordingly. This step is essential to ensure your computer starts up correctly after the cloning procedure.
If you are in need of Windows backup solutions, consider trying out the best free backup software – AOMEI Backupper Standard. This versatile tool allows you to create backups for your entire system, disks, partitions, or individual files, catering to your specific requirements. Whynotgiveitashot?
