There’s no better way to give life to your horribly slow and freezing PC than replacing your hard drive with an SSD. Sure, there are other ways to speed up your PC like optimizing Windows settings, uninstalling unneeded programs and removing temporary files, however, all of them have their own limitations. Upgrading to an SSD can single-handedly improve the system performance. Not just that, Windows will boot faster, programs and files will open faster than they normally do. Downloading, backing up files increases in speed. If you’re wondering how to clone a disk to an SSD in Windows 11, give this tutorial a read.
What is an SSD?
SSDs are considered non-volatile storage mediums. Although they perform the same basic function as the traditional hard disks, they offer various advantages.
The single most important benefit of upgrading to an SSD is the performance. They read & write data magnetically without moving parts that spin.
Since SSDs don’t have moving parts that spin, they operate quietly without noise. Unlike hard disks, the chances of breakdowns are lower.
Thanks to no spinning parts, an SSD is quite faster in reading and writing data to your disk.
Drawbacks
- SSDs are very expensive. If you want to store a lot of data, you’ll need to spend more money than you normally do for hard drives.
- The more data you write to an SSD, the less life is left in your SSD. SSDs have something called as Terabytes Written (TBW) provided by the manufacturer. TBW is your manufacturer’s expectation on how much data can be written to your SSD before it fails. However, it must be noted that your SSD can fail earlier or last longer than the manufacturer’s expectations. It varies due to various circumstances such as manufacturing defects, usage, mechanical failure, etc.
- Since SSDs are newer, they are not yet considered a mature storage platform to backup your crucial data. However, you can keep redundant backups on several storage devices to avoid such circumstances.
What is Disk Cloning?
Disk Cloning is the process of creating an exact copy of your computer’s hard disk. There may be multiple reasons why you may want to consider cloning your disk. Some of the reasonsings are as under:
- Copy everything off your hard disk in order to upgrade to an SSD without fresh installing Windows or any of your programs
- Use the cloned disk as a backup medium in the case the computer abruptly stops working or there are hardware failure
- Clone the contents of a hard disk to hundreds of computers within an organization (such as a data center) to save time. This helps the organization to retain the same operating system, installed applications on other computers as well.
- Cloning is also commonly used by law and enforcement agencies during their various forensic investigations. They take a complete clone of the original evidence (such as a computer, laptop or smartphone) before starting with their forensic investigation to analyze the device’s content and data patterns. They do so to retain the evidence in its original manner, completely unchanged.
Clone Disk to SSD in Windows 11
Precautions
- Completely unplug your Personal Computer (PC) or remove the laptop’s battery before installing your new SSD. Do not unplug, remove cables or perform any other mechanical work while the power supply is on in either AC or DC mode.
- Do not open your SSD. Doing so will void any manufacturer provided warranty.
- Do not touch the connectors of your SSD. Doing so can negatively affect the data storage efficiency of your SSD.
Requirements
- An SSD
- A computer or laptop with a hard disk that consists of your Windows installation, applications and data
- Screwdriver: Please refer to your computer manufacturer’s manual to know the size and type of the screwdriver
- A file cloning software (free or paid) that supports MBR/ GPT depending on the partition table you use.
Steps
Step 1: Connect the SSD
- Shutdown your computer/ laptop. Fully disconnect the power supply of your PC or remove the batteries of your laptop.
- To discharge the residual electricity, press and hold the Power button of your keyboard.
- Open your laptop’s case.
- Plug in your SSD into your system. Make sure that it fits. You may also make use of the spacer that comes with your SSD to attach it.
- Re-connect your laptop’s case and then turn on the laptop.
Step 2: Clone the SSD Using a Disk Cloning Software
- Install AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Free Edition.
- Click on the Tools icon on the left-hand side panel.
- Select Disk Clone Wizard.
- Choose one of the disk cloning methods from “Clone Disk Quickly” or “Sector-By-Sector Clone”. For the purpose of this example, we’ll select the “Clone Disk Quickly” option.
- Clone Disk Quickly: When selected, AOMEI only clones used data on your disk to the SSD. This allows resizing the partition size, if you require. Since cloning of empty space is not involved, this process is relatively faster.
- Sector-by-Sector Clone: When selected, this clones all the sectors of your data consisting of both used data and empty space. This may take a lot of time.
- Click on Next.
- In the next page, the program will list the disks connected to your PC/ laptop. Your drives will be displayed as Drive 1, Drive 2, etc. The easiest way to identify your disk is to look at the Size column.
- Select your Source Disk. Source Disk is the storage drive that contains your operating system, applications and data.
- Click on Next.
- Similarly, in the next page, select the Destination Disk. This is the SSD disk where you want to copy everything.
- Check the option “Optimize the performance of SSD”
- Click on Next.
- In the next page, select “Fit partitions to the entire disk”. If you want to re-configure the partition sizes, select “Edit partitions on this disk”. You may also select “Clone without resizing partitions” if you don’t want to resize the partitions.
- Once the disk cloning is finished, an important note will appear to keep in mind for the next system reboot. Read it carefully and then click on “Finish”.
- Click on Apply in the Home screen.
- Click on Proceed when asked to reboot.
Note: If you’re unable to boot your PC/ laptop through the new SSD, change the socket and exchange the drives. Or, enter into your computer’s CMOS Settings and disable the Source Disk (i.e. hard drive).
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Vikas is a technology enthusiast who loves writing articles on computers and technology. He writes on various topics related to software, software reviews, troubleshooting and tips & tricks to make people's digital lives better.