Guided by our list of best models on the market and tempted by current prices, you've decided to buy an SSD. First of all, congratulations! Your world is going to change completely once you see Windows booting from a solid-state drive. And second, you don't have to erase anything. Today we're going to explain how to clone your hard drive to a new SSD using free, portable software, in a matter of minutes.
A standard SSD costs less than 30 euros. If you look at major tech channels on YouTube, you'll see that today everyone chooses to add an SSD to their setup, even on the lowest-budget computers. Our recent list dedicated to the best hard drives includes very fast examples that will serve you well if your priority is capacity, but that doesn't prevent adding a small SSD as a 'launcher-accelerator' for Windows 10. Now, one of the most frustrating steps for any user is reinstalling the operating system, especially when the current environment is working well. Fortunately, the next step doesn't require bombing the computer from orbit. With just knowing how to clone your hard drive to a new SSD, you'll be ready.
How to Clone Your Hard Drive to a New SSD Without a Hitch
The internet offers dozens of programs for cloning hard drives and SSDs, but today I lean towards MiniTool Partition Wizard for two reasons: First, it has a free edition with the functions we need, and second, there is a portable build that saves us the installation. This build is one or two versions behind the normal installer, but that doesn't cause problems. On the contrary: Once you finish the cloning, you delete the temporary folder, and that's all. Let's begin.
1: Open the Program
The interface can be a bit intimidating at first, but there's nothing to worry about. In fact, the function we need is right there, in plain sight: "Migrate OS to SSD/HD"
2: Choose a Cloning Option
'A' proposes replacing the current system disk with a new drive. 'B' talks about moving (technically copying) the operating system to the new drive, and preserving the original. For flexibility and safety, we choose 'B'.
3: Select the Target Drive
There's not much to explain here. Choose the SSD that will become the system drive, and press 'Next'. In our example we are working on real hardware (i.e., not a virtual machine), but we have cheated a bit, because all drives are solid-state (just to save time). Remember: All data on the target drive will be destroyed.
4: Verify and/or Modify the Partitions
Probably the most complicated step: Option 1 copies partitions and resizes them automatically, and option 2 copies them without changes. The problem is that the program may assign a disproportionate size to the reserved partition, and we don't want that. Therefore, in this case we choose option 2, leave the reserved partition at its original size, and extend the main partition to 'fill' the disk. The parameter to align partitions should stay checked, and we can ignore GPT mode here (the drives are very small, and MiniTool Partition Wizard Free doesn't support MBR to GPT migration anyway).
5: Confirm and Apply the Changes
MiniTool Partition Wizard will warn that in the end you need to change the boot order in the BIOS so the OS boots from the SSD. We click Apply, and after a few seconds the program will indicate that it needs to restart to work 'outside' Windows on the clone. The time it takes will depend on the original size of the partition, the natural speed of the hard drive, and the interface used. On our test machine, moving the OS from one SSD to another took less than six minutes. From a hard drive to an SSD, the delay will be longer.
6: Success!
As the image shows, 'Disk 4' (our new target drive) now contains the C partition and all of Windows 10, after booting without errors. Now, what's next for the hard drive? Once you've made sure the clone works well, you can erase its original partitions and create new ones, thus assigning it the role of a secondary drive. Another option is to remove it from the computer and use it as an external drive, though you'll need a special enclosure compatible with 3.5 inches. Good luck!
