More and more people prefer to use SSD to replace HDD. What advantages does SSD have? How to clone hard drive to SSD?

• Clone Hdd To Ssd Minitool
• Ssd Partition Tool
• Minitool Migration Tool

MiniTool Partition Wizard. The second software is MiniTool Partition Wizard. It is a professional disk and partition management program. This software can help you clone disk and partition for backup and data migration. It can help you migrate OS from HDD to SSD or and vice-versa. Clone HDD to Smaller SSD Using MiniTool ShadowMaker. MiniTool Partition Wizard to finish this job. Hope that all the methods will help you some way. MiniTool Solution. Free Disk Copy Software MiniTool Drive Copy is a Free Disk Copy Software and Disk Cloning tool. MiniTool Drive Copy can copy and clone FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 partitions. This is how i migrate OS on harddrive to a new SSD. My SSD is smaller than HDD so i only clone OS without moving data to new ssd. You can also modify partiti.

SSD’S Advantage

1. Speed: Speed is SSD’s major selling point. A computer with SSD boots within a minute, even a few seconds. And it runs faster and the same in transferring files.
2. Noise: Compared with hard drive, SSD makes no noise at all because they’re non-mechanical. Usually, even the quietest hard drive also produce noise. So this is a good point of SSD.
3. Power: SSD uses less power and the energy it used will not in noise. Thus, battery life is increased.
Since SSD has so many advantages, how to clone hard drive to SSD safely?

How to Clone Hard Drive to SSD

With the help of professional software, you can easily clone hard drive to SSD Windows 10 free. I will introduce you two hard drive cloning software. Let’s see them one by one.

Use MiniTool ShadowMaker

MiniTool ShadowMaker is a professional backup software. It has many highlighted features including back up files and system, restore system and hard disk drives to previous state, and clone hard drive to for disk backup.
Step 1. Connect SSD to your computer and run MiniTool ShadowMaker. And choose This PC to manage this computer.
Step 2. Now you can see the interface of MiniTool ShadowMaker. Click Tools and select Clone Disk feature.

Step 3. You need to select source disk and target disk separately.

Step 4. Click the source disk to choose a disk you want to copy. And you can see the partitions on the selected disk. After that, click Finish to continue.

Step 5. Now it’s time to select target disk to save the copy. Then back to the clone disk interface and confirm information about the source disk and target disk. After clicking OK, you will get the following warning that data on target disk will be destroyed. Click Yes to continue.

Step 6. Now cloning disk begins. You can see the process, elapsed time and remaining time. Wait patiently until the operation is completed.

Note: You will receive the following information that prompts you to disconnect the original hard drive or the target hard drive when you boot after cloning disk. If they are connected to computer at the same time, one of them may be marked as offline by Windows.

Make Use of MiniTool Partition Wizard

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free is an effective partition magic. It can help you to convert MBR disk to GPT disk, migrate operating system to SSD, extend partition, etc.
Step 1. Prepare an SSD and connect to your computer. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard to enter its main interface. Select the disk you want to clone and click Copy Disk in the toolbar.

Step 2. Select a target disk to save the source content to. All data of the source disk will be copied to the target disk. But at the same time, target disk content will be deleted. You should backup important files in advance.

Step 3. Preview the changes. Partition size can also be changed by dragging the triangle.
 Fit partitions to entire disk means that the content disk will occupy the full space of target disk.
 Copy options without resize is to keep the partition size as original.
 Align partitions to 1 MB is selected by default to improve the performance of SSD.
 Use GUID Partition Table for the target disk cannot be used in free edition. It applies to hard drive larger than 2 TB.
Step 4. This page tells you how to boot from destination disk. If you are dealing with the system disk, you need to read the note carefully.

Step 5. You can preview the changes you will make. If you are satisfied with the changes, click Apply to make the changes effective.

Now two ways to clone hard drive to SSD are introduced. They are all free! Don’t hesitate. Just download the one you like and use it to clone hard drive to SSD.

Summary :

Are you using a traditional hard drive but find the computer runs slowly? Are you about to clone a hard drive to an SSD but the SSD is smaller? Here, hard drive cloning software - MiniTool ShadowMaker or MiniTool Partition Wizard will help you to clone HDD to smaller SSD easily and successfully.

Can I Clone Hard Drive to Smaller SSD

Disk cloning has become a good way to transfer all contents including system, settings, programs, and data from a hard drive to another disk. In today’s era, disk cloning is public demand and you are required to do disk cloning in many cases, for example, upgrade your disk, make a backup and more.

In general, many users decide to clone a hard drive to SSD or migrate OS from HDD to SSD because of the fast read-write speed of SSD so that Windows can boot up in a few seconds.

Then, a question comes up: what if the disk capacity of an SSD is smaller than a traditional HDD? This is bothering the majority. Let’s see a true case:

“I am attempting to upgrade several computers from HDD to SSD and would like to use a stand-alone cloner to do so. The problem is that all of the SSD's are of smaller capacity than the HDD's and the cloners that I have found do not allow for this. Does anyone know of a stand-alone cloner that would allow me to do this?” tomshardware

Are you facing the same situation? Is it possible to finish the disk cloning from a large HDD to smaller SDD? Actually, it can be done with ease. Here, let’s focus on the effective methods now.

How to Clone Hard Drive to Smaller SSD

Based on user feedback, it is not easy to clone a large disk to a smaller one. In the software market, you will find there are many types of hard drive cloning software, however, most software only supports cloning a small disk to a larger one. Well then, is there any available tool for this job?

Of course, MiniTool Solution Ltd. has released two programs including MiniTool ShadowMaker and MiniTool Partition Wizard. Right now, let’s see some detailed information.

Clone HDD to Smaller SSD Using MiniTool ShadowMaker

Is MiniTool ShadowMaker suitable for you to clone a disk from large to smaller? Maybe this is the thing you want to know.

At first glance, you can find it is a good piece of Windows backup software mainly for important files, Windows OS, partition or disk on your computer.

As a matter of fact, it also offers you a powerful feature called Clone Disk, enabling you to transfer the entire system disk or data disk to HDD or SSD although the hard drive is smaller than the original disk in Windows 10/8/7.

Right now, download the Trial Edition of this SSD cloning software from the following button to start to clone HDD to smaller HDD or directly use its Professional Edition for cloning.

How to clone a hard drive to SSD free in Windows 10/8/7? MiniTool software offers the best way to clone a hard drive from HDD to SSD or a new one.

Step 1: Connect the SSD that has enough disk space to your computer. Then, double-click on the program icon and then enter the main interface.

Step 2: Then, perhaps you will ask where the cloning feature is. Please navigate to Tools tab located in the toolbar, and then click Clone Disk module to start to clone large HDD to smaller SSD.

Step 3: After that, for a hard drive cloning, it is necessary to choose the large source disk and the smaller target disk.

After the selections, Click OK to continue. A warning will appear, saying all target disk contents will be deleted. Well then, ensure that no important files are saved on the SSD or use MiniTool ShadowMaker to make a backup at once.

Step 4: In the process page, all the information about the cloning will be listed including the source disk, destination disk, cloning elapsed time and remaining time.

If you can't wait for the cloning to complete, click the button Shut down the computer when the operation is completed in advance. Conversely, please wait patiently.

There are some details that you should know:

• To replace large HDD with smaller SSD, for a laptop, you can shut down it, remove the source disk, and then put the smaller SSD containing system disk copy to the original location. Then, boot your laptop to enjoy the good performance of SSD.
• If you use a desktop and want to use both the large HDD and small SSD, just enter BIOS to change the boot order so as to boot your computer from the SSD.

Are you searching for a way to clone HDD to smaller SSD? Just get MiniTool ShadowMaker Trial Edition and install it on Windows 10/8/7. Besides, you can also share this professional cloning software to Twitter so that it can help your friends out.

Clone Large HDD to Smaller SSD via MiniTool Partition Wizard

In addition, MiniTool is also the developer of MiniTool Partition Wizard which is specially designed to cope with many disk issues, for instance, low disk space warning, the Format did not complete successfully issue, can't read from the source file or disk error and so forth.

Besides, it can also be a piece of hard drive cloning software. With its powerful features, you are able to perform a cloning operation in the most user-friendly way. What's more, it supports mainstream operating systems including Windows 10/8/7, etc.

To clone HDD to smaller SSD, get its Free Edition from the following button first and foremost, install it on your PC and have a try. If you want to clone your system disk, use its Pro Edition due to the edition limitation.

Step 1: Run MiniTool Partition Wizard to its main interface, you can see many useful functions displayed. To clone to smaller SSD, here use its Copy Disk function and the following interface shows you how to get it:

Step 2: Select a target disk and here it should be the smaller SSD connected to your PC. Then, click Next to proceed. A warning will appear and tell you the process will destroy all data on the SSD. For a successful cloning operation, click the Yes button. Please make sure no important data is put in this SSD.

Step 3: Then, there are two copy options listed in the following interface. But you are only allowed to choose Fit partitions to entire disk when you choose to clone to smaller SSD. This is the thing you should pay attention to.

Besides, for the target disk SSD, we suggest checking Align partitions to 1MB to improve performance. Moreover, if you attempt to clone system disk to the SSD with GPT partition style, Use GUID Partition Table for the target disk is helpful.

Step 4: The following page will show you how to boot from the destination disk. If you are cloning the system disk, pay more attention to this notice.

Step 5: MiniTool Partition Wizard will return to its main interface. Here, you can preview all the changes you are going to make to the smaller SSD. Just make a confirmation, then, press Apply to bring all operations into effect.

To clone HDD to smaller SSD, in addition to the Copy Disk feature of MiniTool Partition Wizard, Migrate OS to SSD/HD Wizard is still available. After clicking it in the toolbar, you are required to choose one migration way:

• If you want to replace your system disk with another hard disk, A can help to copy all the partitions on the system disk.
• If you decide to only move operating system from HDD to smaller SSD, choose B.

Then, begin the migration according to its instructions. This post - How Can You Migrate Windows 10 to SSD without Reinstalling OS gives you more information.

MiniTool ShadowMaker VS Partition Wizard

In the second part, we have walked you through how to clone HDD to smaller SSD by means of MiniTool programs. In all probability, you feel curious about which one you should use. Let’s see some details.

MiniTool ShadowMaker enables you to clone a hard drive which can be system disk and data disk to smaller SSD. This feature is powerful to transfer all disk data to another hard drive. Note that, this PC clone software only allows cloning the entire disk.

MiniTool Partition Wizard has two helpful functions: Copy Disk is suitable for the entire disk cloning including system disk and data disk. This is the same as MiniTool ShadowMaker. Besides, this tool offers you an additional feature to only move system required partitions from HDD to SSD. But you need to pay for the Pro Edition for these features.

Both of them support booting your computer from the target disk after disk cloning. Which one do you prefer? Just get the appropriate tool based on your needs to begin the cloning and then enjoy the fast read-write speed.

Buy the Right SSD

Knowing the way to clone HDD to smaller SSD, it is necessary for you to choose the right SSD for disk cloning. Here are the top sellers on Amazon for you to choose from:

Bottom Line

Above is all the information about the cloning from large HDD to smaller SDD, including the reason for cloning to SSD, ways to clone HDD to smaller SSD and the difference between two great hard drive cloning tools developed by MiniTool Team. Hope you can benefit from this article.

If you have any problems during the process of using our software, please let us know by writing your issues in the following comment section. Or, you can contact our support team via [email protected]. Besides, all suggestions are welcome. We will reply to you as soon as possible.

Clone HDD to Smaller SSD FAQ

Clone Hdd To Ssd Minitool

Ssd Partition Tool

Minitool Migration Tool