How to Clone Large HDD to Smaller SSD

Amy Dennis

Jan 15, 2024 • Filed to: Take Data Backup • Proven solutions

Disk cloning is the act of copying data from a computer hard drive to another place. Many people are adopting disk cloning because it is an excellent way of moving contents like systems, settings, programs, and data from your hard drive to another disk, especially when you want to upgrade your disk, make a backup, and more.

Why should you use disk cloning? Disk cloning is an excellent way of cloning a hard drive or transferring an OS to an SSD. You get a fast read-write speed for your window to boot up in a few seconds, which is what you want, right? So, do you know how to clone a hard drive?

There are benefits to cloning a disk. So, what if the SSD's disk capacity is lesser than that of your standard HDD? The issue, unfortunately, is affecting many people, not just you. The good news is that you can execute the disk cloning from a large-size HDD to a smaller SSD. Are you wondering how? It is simple. First, let us quickly look at why you need to clone HDD to SSD.

Part 1: Why Do You Need to Clone HDD to SSD?

Upgrading system hard drives has become a norm. Many people are seeing the need to upgrade for better performance of their computer without having to replace the whole system. Therefore, why do you want to clone the hard drive to another smaller SSD? It can be due to the following reasons:

1. Upgrade Old Hard Drive

How old have you had your hard drive? After years of use of your hard drive, its firmware starts to be out of date, and the disk begins to wear out. There is a need to replace your old disk with a new one to minimize the chances of its failure and maximize performance to a great extent.

2. Expand a Small Hard Drive

Sometimes you clone your hard drive when you run out of disk space. Cloning data to a larger hard drive gives you extra disk space without any data loss.

3. Make a Backup

It is a nightmare to lose your data in case of corruption of your computer that can happen unexpectedly. When you learn how to clone a hard drive, you can secure your data by backing up your hard drive as periodically and frequently as possible.

4. Improve Performance

Upgrading your hard drive to SSD improves your computer performance. That is because SSD outstands out for its fast read-write speed, low consumption rate, and many other benefits that come with it.

5. Price

SSDs are still new in the market. So, the price might be higher per GB capacity than the traditional HDDs, but if you look at the benefits you get, it is worth investing in it.

6. SSD for OS and HDD storage setup

Your computer boots faster when the OS is in the SSD and has a larger HDD for secondary storage.

7. Saving time and effort

Cloning your computer hard drive to an SSD configures system setting intact in one place. That saves you the effort and time of reinstalling the OS and applications compared to a fresh install.

The above reasons are enough to want you to learn how to clone a hard drive, right? How do you successfully clone your drive easily? First, windows do not have a cloning feature. Therefore, you have to use a third-party cloning tool specially made for the cloning process.

You certainly wish to know more about the best cloning tool, right? Calm down, you will learn later in the post on the best tool to use, but before that, do you know how long it takes to clone a hard drive?

Part 2: How Long Will It Take for Cloning a Hard Drive Windows 7/8/10?

You agree that you want to perform the cloning process smoothly and fast, right? Well, to answer the question of how long it takes to clone hard drive windows, consider the following three main factors:

1. How Much Data Is Available on the Disk That You Want to Clone?

To know how long it takes to clone HDD to SSD, you must consider the amount of data in your hard drive. The more data you have, the longer it takes to clone your hard drive.

2. Which Method Did You Apply to Clone the Drive?

Which method are you planning to use? Determining the way to apply is critical, and this is why:

• There are two steps to clone a disk to various systems. First, you will have to clone the current drive to the data repository, and the second step is to clone to a bar disk from there.
• If you are upgrading your computer and want to clone the hard drive, then it is possible to clone your current disk to another disk, in this case, the SSD. So, in this case, you do not need to tackle an intermediate step like above.

3. The Type of Your Hard Drive

Finally, the last factor is the type of your hard drive and, at times, the specification of the system. The speed of your older disk may be the determining factor of how long you take to clone your hard drive. It is particularly crucial during a direct transfer (drive-to-drive) if you are using a traditional old drive technology for cloning to a new one.

In short, you cannot estimate the time you need to clone a hard drive to SSD. It depends on your actual situation. Next, you are going to learn the best method for cloning a hard drive in Windows to smaller SSD.

Part 3: How to Quickly Clone Large HDD to Smaller SSD via Wondershare UBackit?

Now, you remember the question of which tool to use to clone your hard drive effectively. Well, the answer is finally here. The best reliable tool to use to clone your data from a larger HDD to a smaller SSD is Wondershare UBackit .

The tool automatically adjusts the partitions to fit in the smaller SSD during the cloning process. It also offers an exclusive option (SSD Alignment) to improves SSD's performance and prolong its lifespan. As you shall see, when cloning, the option appears on the final configuration page.

Under normal circumstances, Wondershare UBackit will help you clone a larger HDD to a smaller SSD quickly. You will know all the steps below, but before you do, make sure you have a smaller SSD connected to your computer.

Getting your system prepared for Cloning

• Make sure you have the SSD whose capacity is large enough than that of the current HDD's used space. Besides, ensure that your computer detects it and back up any data that may be in the SSD
• The second thing you need to do is to delete the files that you don't need and also remove redundant applications on your computer HDD to reduce the amount of cloning time.
• Lastly, install and run Wondershare UBackit. You can also freely get its demo version and use it.

Steps to Clone Large HDD to Smaller SSD

Now that you have all the information, do you know how to clone an HDD to a smaller SSD? If you do not, do not worry. Follow the following steps to do so:

Step 1 Launch And Install Wondershare UBackit

Step 2 Select A Large HHD to Clone

From the list of the available drives, just choose the drive to back up (like C/D/E/F) and click on the “Select” button.

Step 3 Select SSD as Backup Destination

It is advised that you choose a brand new external hard drive to store the backup data and settings. Also, ensure that the storage space is big enough to load the whole disk.

Step 4 Complete the Cloning Process

After clicking on the “Backup” button, you can just sit back, and wait for a while. The application will display the progress of the disk backup process on the screen.

In the end, UBackit will inform you once the Disk Backup process is completed. You can now view, restore, and manage your backup from your UBackit dashboard.

The following tips will help you:

• If the space in use on the source disk is larger than the SSD, the guide on migrating operating systems to SSD has the necessary information that you need. To do that, you have to first degrade to the professional version.
• These steps also apply to a laptop.
• You can use the Wondershare UBackit tool to perform functions other than cloning. The tool has excellent backup and restores features that allow you to make the full system, disk, schedule, partition, and file backups and synchronize data as well.

Conclusion

Using SSD (solid-state drive) in your computer adds more benefits than the traditional HDD (hard disk drive). You get faster reading and writing speed than HDD and produce less noise. That explains why many users are switching their HDD to SSD by cloning HDD to SSD without losing data.

What happens if the SSD is smaller than the HDD when cloning your HDD to SSD? Is there a way of how to clone a larger HDD to a smaller SSD? Fortunately, there is. The above article provides you with how to clone a large HDD to a smaller HDD without reinstalling windows. All you have to do is to download Wondershare UBackit Professions and use the features in it to clone easily.