Cloning hard drives and SSDs is an extremely valuable strategy for any user looking to expand their storage without reinstalling the operating system. Previously, we explained how to clone a hard drive with Windows 10 to an SSD, and our tool of choice was Macrium Reflect Free, which was at version 7. However, its developer confirmed last weekend Macrium Reflect 8 Free, which in addition to improving its compatibility with Windows 11, also includes support for exFAT partitions and removable drives.
Despite price and availability frictions, hard drives and SSDs haven't felt much impact. A 480 GB SSD now costs less than 50 euros, while a terabyte of storage has dropped below 90 euros.
The real problem is reinstalling all your software... but we can take the shortcut of cloning. The transfer process should be transparent to the operating system as long as we use a quality tool, and that's where Macrium Reflect 8 Free comes in. The commercial edition of the software debuted in February, but if you're thinking about cloning hard drives for free, you can now download its version at no cost.
Macrium Reflect 8 Free, ideal for cloning hard drives for free
What exactly is new? If we limit ourselves to the interface, there are no major changes, and that means any user experienced with previous Macrium builds will have no trouble managing this new edition. In fact, one of the first highlights on the list of improvements is localization, with support for Russian, Japanese, French, and German.
On a more technical note, we find that the entire 'Restore' section is now called 'Existing Backups' in an attempt to reorganize and improve the structure of stored backups. At the same time, we also find more flexibility for scheduling automatic backup names, with values ranging from the program version to the computer name and the exact time the backup was created.
Cloning removable drives and exFAT partitions
Finally, we discovered that rescue media can now be prepared with Windows PE 11, which uses the Windows 11 kernel (that includes updated drivers and better support for modern hardware), the ability to clone removable drives and SD memory cards as if they were normal drives, and compatibility with exFAT partitions.
If you want to download Macrium Reflect 8 Free from the official page, you'll need to share an email address, but the requirements end there. As an alternative, you can always use a trusted mirror to get the updated installers.
Official site and download: Click here
