A Simple Guide of How to Clone from HDD to SSD

Solid State Drive (SSD) are now being used more and more by newer generation of PCs and laptops. It faster, it lighter, it better, and now it more affordable. Using SSD will save a lot of time, such as waiting for boot time, waiting for programs to open, and waiting for various other processes. So, what are you waiting for? Save your time by migrate and Clone your HDD to SSD now!

Currently, there are two types of storage that are widely used in both PCs and laptops, which are HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and SSD (Solid State Drive). An HDD, is a device used for storing and accessing digital data through the use of rapidly spinning disks coated in magnetic material. Currently, HDDs are commonly designed as small rectangular-shaped boxes in 2.5inch size or larger. We still often encounter HDD on low-mid PCs and laptops. Unlike HDD, SSD uses flash memory, which allows for faster data access and transfer speeds. SSDs are often used in higher specs PCs or laptops because it’s more expensive when compared to HDD. Besides being faster, SSD is also lighter than HDD, it also has more types of sizes such as 2.5inch, mSATA, m.2 SATA, m.2 NVMe, and PCIe.

Many people today want to switch or migrate from HDD to SSD. It is because of read and write speed of SSD, that will make boot and opening program much faster, also because of SSD prices are more affordable now. But some of them think that to migrate is difficult. For PC users, maybe migrating to using an SSD is an easy thing, but not so with laptop users. Apart from having to disassemble the laptop, they are worried that the licenses for various programs such as Windows and their important data will be lost.

If you want to migrate from HDD to SSD, then don't just copy your data from your old HDD to your new SSD. What you should do is clone. Why do you have to clone? because clone has more benefits such as:

1. No need to reinstall various programs and games used,
2. There is no risk of installing the wrong driver,
3. The default OS license and other applications will not be affected or lost,
4. The storage partition structure will remain unchanged or same as before,
5. The process is quicker and more convenient than copying manually.

Before we go further, please make sure you are using windows 7 or newer, because older windows can’t optimize and take care of SSDs. For laptop, it is recommended to do cloning process while charging. So, how to clone? Follow this step by step to clone from HDD to SSD.

1. For PC, just make sure you have free storage slot for your SSD, and put your new SSD there,
2. For Laptop, set up an HDD enclosure (2.5 inch), recommended with USB 3.0 cable if your laptop has USB 3.0 port and put your new SSD there,
3. Install EASEUS ToDo Backup Free, and open it,
4. Search and select for the source drive (HDD to be cloned),
5. Select all of the partitions in the source drive,
6. Select target drive (your new SSD),
7. Click on Proceed, and your cloning process begin.

This cloning process will take a while, so be patient. The duration of the cloning process depends on the read and write speed of your HDD and SSD, as well as on how much data is on your HDD. After the process is complete, you can swap your HDD to SSD (put your SSD inside your laptop, and put your HDD to the enclosure). You can do cloning with other free software (step 2) such as Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition or AOMEI Backup Free, the process is more or less the same. Good Luck 😊