How to Clone Your System from HDD to SSD?

If your computer has both an HDD and an SSD, you can migrate your system to the SSD to experience faster boot and running speeds. Meanwhile, the original HDD can still serve as a high-capacity storage drive, balancing data storage and cost-effectiveness. This classic storage solution achieves an excellent balance between performance, cost and user experience, making it highly cost-effective for the vast majority of users. Follow this guide to learn how to safely and smoothly migrate your system from HDD to SSD.

• Advantages and considerations of migrating the system from HDD to SSD
• Best Windows backup and cloning software—Hasleo Backup Suite
• How to Clone Windows from HDD to SSD Using Hasleo Backup Suite?
• Conclusion

Advantages and considerations of migrating the system from HDD to SSD

Migrating the operating system from a traditional mechanical hard drive (HDD) to a solid-state drive (SSD) is far more than a simple data transfer. It represents a comprehensive overhaul of the computer experience, with its core advantages reflected in several aspects:

1. Enhanced performance and experience: With extremely high random I/O speeds, SSDs enable OS boot within seconds, instant wake-up from sleep mode, significantly reduced application load times, noticeably fewer lags, and an overall smoother user experience.
2. Perfect balance between cost and capacity: SSDs ensure smooth system performance, while HDDs provide massive storage space. A moderate-sized SSD hosts the OS and core applications for speed, while the same budget can get a larger capacity HDD, effectively controlling costs while significantly expanding overall storage capacity.
3. Optimized storage lifespan and management: Offloading OS and software I/O (frequent small writes, temp files) to the SSD reduces HDD wear from frequent start-stop cycles and fragmentation, significantly extending its lifespan. Additionally, using a separate system drive and data drive strategy allows for formatting only the SSD system drive in case of a system failure, keeping personal data on a separate drive intact, greatly facilitating data backup and system recovery processes.
4. Reduced noise and power consumption: SSDs operate completely silently since there are no mechanical components involved, reducing system noise during operation. Moreover, SSDs generally consume less power than HDDs, which is particularly advantageous for laptops and other mobile devices, helping to prolong battery life.

Before you begin the migration, please carefully review the following considerations to ensure the entire process can be completed safely and smoothly.

1. Check whether the SSD has enough capacity to accommodate the current system partition and important software.
2. Optimize and clean the source HDD by removing system temporary files, caches, and other unnecessary data. This reduces the total data volume for migration and ultimately speeds up the process.
3. When the HDD is used as a data disk, the original system partition will be formatted. To ensure system security and the integrity of important data, it is recommended to create a complete backup of the current system as well as a backup of important data on the HDD to avoid data loss due to accidental operations.
4. Check and ensure that the SSD is correctly installed in the computer and that the system can recognize the SSD. If the SSD is a brand new disk, initialize it in the system.

Best Windows backup and cloning software—Hasleo Backup Suite

Hasleo Backup Suite is a professional backup and cloning software that provides comprehensive data protection for systems, disk partitions, and files and folders. It can not only perform backup and restore of Windows systems, disk partitions, and various files, but also achieve complete cloning of systems, disks, and partitions. As an all-in-one solution integrating backup, restore, and cloning, Hasleo Backup Suite helps users easily tackle diverse data protection tasks with its features of safety, reliability, stable operation, and high efficiency. Regarding the cloning function, it offers the following notable advantages:

1. Supports system, disk, and partition cloning with extremely fast speed.
2. Provides various disk alignment modes and allows adjusting the size of the target partition.
3. Supports Delta clone and sector-by-sector cloning of disks and partitions.
4. Supports MBR to GPT or GPT to MBR conversion during the cloning process.
5. Compatible with all storage drive types, such as IDE, SATA, SCSI, USB and NVMe.
6. Supports running on Windows Vista/Server 2008 and later (both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures).

 

How to Clone Windows from HDD to SSD Using Hasleo Backup Suite?

Below is the step-by-step guide for migrating Windows from an HDD to an SSD, mainly divided into four parts: system cloning, changing the BIOS boot order, formatting the HDD as a data disk, and optimization settings.

1. Clone System

Step 1. Properly install the SSD and ensure your system can recognize this device. Download, install, and run the Hasleo Backup Suite Home/Professional/Server/Enterprise edition. Then, click the "Clone" button in the navigation bar, then click "System Clone" in the operation area.

* Tips:

1. If the SSD is a brand new drive, right-click the "Start" menu, open Disk Management, initialize the drive, and complete the partition setup.
2. The SSD installation guide for desktop computers and laptops (dual hard drive bays) can be referenced at this link.

Step 2. Hasleo Backup Suite will automatically select all partitions required for cloning the Windows system. Then, click "Next" to continue.

Step 3. Select the SSD as the target disk, then click "Next".

Step 4. Adjust the partition size and location as needed, then click "Proceed".

* Disk alignment:

1. 1M (Recommended): 1M alignment is a subset of 4K alignment. Partitions aligned to 1MB are always 4K-aligned, which helps you get the best SSD performance. In Windows Vista and later operating systems, partitions created using Windows Disk Management are always aligned to 1MB bytes, regardless of whether the disk is an SSD.
2. 4K: This option ensures the starting sector of every partition is aligned on a 4K bytes, which is very important for the best performance of an SSD.
3. Cylinder: Ensure the starting sector of each destination partition always starts at the beginning of a cylinder. Windows XP and previous OSs use this alignment mode.
4. None: The start sector of each the destination partitions is not aligned.

* The Sector by sector clone partiton option copies every sector from the source partition to the destination partition, including unused sectors.

Step 5. A warning message will appear, telling that all data on the destination drive will be destroyed. If the destination disk contains no important data, click "Yes" to continue.

Step 6. Hasleo Backup Suite is now cloning your Windows system from the HDD to the SSD. This process will take some time, please be patient. When finished, you'll need to shut down the computer.

2. Change the BIOS Boot Order

Step 1. After turning on the computer, immediately press the F2/Del/F10/Esc keys repeatedly to enter the UEFI/BIOS interface.

* Tips: For the correct key, please refer to your motherboard manual or the on-screen prompt in the lower-left or lower-right corner during startup.

Step 2. Navigate to the "Boot" tab and set the SSD as the first boot option. Save the changes, and exit.

Step 3. Following the migration process, the system will automatically restart and boot from the SSD. A significant improvement in boot speed and application performance will be observed. To verify successful boot from the SSD, confirm that the system drive (typically C:) properties display the correct capacity corresponding to the SSD. This can be done by right-clicking the drive in "This PC" and selecting "Properties". Alternatively, the drive model can be checked in Disk Management.

3. Format the HDD as a Data Disk

Before performing this operation, it is important that you create a full system backup. Additionally, ensure all critical personal data stored on the HDD is backed up separately. These steps are essential to avoid data loss due to accidental operations.

Step 1. After confirming that the system boots from the SSD and all files are correct, right-click the "Start" menu and open "Disk Management". In the disk list, you can distinguish SSDs from HDDs based on disk capacity and partitions marked as "Healthy (Boot, Page File, etc.)".

Step 2. Identify the original EFI System Partition, Recovery Partition, and other partitions related to the operating system on the HDD. Carefully right-click on these partitions and select the "Delete Volume". Keep your data partitions (e.g., D: drive). After deletion, the space will become separate blocks of "Unallocated" space.

Step 3. According to your needs, merge the unallocated space, format it as a new volume, and assign a drive letter. Now your HDD is available as a data disk for storing documents, videos, and various types of files.

4. Optimize Settings

Step 1. Press the "Win + I" keys to open the Windows Settings, select "System", then click "Storage" in the left navigation pane. Find and click on "Change where new content is saved", then change the default save locations for folders like "Documents", "Music", "Videos" to HDD. Click "Apply" to save the changes.

Step 2. Press the "Win + E" keys to open File Explorer, go to the path "C:\Users\YourUsername". Right-click on the library folders such as "Documents", "Downloads", "Pictures" inside the user folder. Then, select "Properties", click "Move" in the "Location" tab, and change their default storage location to the HDD. This can prevent everyday files from occupying SSD space and help maintain the performance and sufficient capacity of the system drive.

Step 3. When installing new software, it is recommended to choose a partition on the HDD data drive, especially for large software.

 

Conclusion

Following the steps above, Hasleo Backup Suite enables a seamless system migration from your HDD to an SSD. This setup allows you to boot and run applications from the high-speed SSD, while utilizing the larger HDD for data storage—combining optimal performance with enough capacity.

As professional backup and cloning software, Hasleo Backup Suite delivers comprehensive data protection. Beyond essential compression and encryption for image files, it offers advanced capabilities like Delta Clone and Delta Restore. Experience the security and convenience of a professional-grade tool — download now to safeguard your data.