How to Clone HDD to SSD on Windows 11/10/8/7?

Introduction

More and more users upgrade their boot drives to SSDs for faster booting up and reading & writing speed. In this page, you will learn how to clone or migrate HDD to SSD without reinstalling Windows OS and programs, and make it bootable.

SSDs (Solid-State Drives) perform much better than HDDs with their newer and more modern technology. In need of cloning HDD to SSD, we will discuss it from following 4 parts:

Part 1: Why do I need to clone HDD to SSD?

SSDs have many advantages...so if you want to replace an old HDD with a new SSD, it is reasonable. You may also need to move all contents from the HDD to the new SSD. The best way to move all contents from a HDD to an SSD is disk cloning in Windows 11/10/8/7, or macOS. Here is why to upgrade a HDD to an SSD.

Advantages of SSDs over HDDs

• SSDs have faster reading and writing speed than HDDs. It means system and program boot times are greatly reduced and file transferring is much quicker.
• SSDs are more durable. They have no any physical components, so it is not affected by external traumas.
• SSDs use less energy than HDDs. Unlike HDDs, there is no any moving parts in involved in SSDs, so they generally consume less power.
• SSDs make less noise.
• SSDs weigh less than HDDs.
• SSDs have no time delay for the mechanical rotation or head positioning activities that HDDs have.

Part 2. Preparations for cloning HDD to SSD

In the beginning of cloning HDD to SSD, please make sure you have the following preparations:

• A new SSD. The SSD can be smaller than the hdd, but please make sure the SSD capacity should be big enough to fit the space used on the hdd.
• Install the SSD to the computer.
• Check the partition style of the SSD if it is in accordance with HDD. If not, please convert GPT disk to MBR or vice versa with Disk Management.
• Backup the data on SSD if they are important. Cloning HDD to SSD will wipe all the data on the destination SSD.
• A reliable disk clonling software supports to clone HDD to SSD.

Part 3. How to clone HDD to SSD without reinstalling Windows?

Donemax Disk Clone is one of the best disk cloning software to help you securely and easily clone a HDD to an SSD without reinstalling your Windows OS and programs. It also ensures you to boot from the cloned SSD successfully. Just Download this professional SSD disk cloning software, and follow the steps below.

Step 1. Download and install it to your computer. Donemax Disk Clone is fully compatible with Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, Server and macOS.

Step 2. Make sure the SSD and HDD are connected to your computer. And there should be enough disk space on the SSD to save the cloned data of HDD.

Step 3. Run Donemax Disk Clone and select Disk Clone to clone an entire HDD to your SSD.

Step 4. Select the HDD as the source disk, then select the SSD as the destination disk. click Next to clone the HDD to the SSD.

Step 5. Edit the disk layout and the destination disk is SSD, please tick the box 'check the option if the target is SSD'.

Step 6. Click Clone to clone the HDD to the SSD. Once the process gets finished, you can check the cloned data on the SSD.

▶️ Video about Cloning HDD to SSD

The following video demonstrates the detailed steps about how to clone HDD to SSD in Windows Vista/7/8/10/11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nD2tXWCTxA

Part 4. Clone HDD to SSD FAQs

Conclusion

If you want to upgrade your HDD to an advanced SSD, you can choose a method to help you copy all data from the HDD to SSD. You can copy documents from HDD and paste to the HDD manually. However, it takes long time and it will failed to boot if you just copy the data of the boot drive to SSD manually. Donemax Disk Clone is still the safest way to move all your data and system to your SSD without reinstalling Windows OS.