Easiest Way to Clone HDD to SSD via USB | Step by Step
The advantages of cloning HDD to SSD via USB
The USB-to-SATA adapter is a useful tool that allows you to access external devices with a SATA interface, such as hard drives and solid-state drives (SSDs), through the USB port of your computer. This adapter is particularly useful when cloning a hard disk drive (HDD) to a solid-state drive (SSD).
Case 1: You're planning to upgrade your computer's storage by replacing the old hard disk drive (HDD) with a faster and more reliable solid-state drive (SSD). To make this process smoother, you can use a USB-to-SATA adapter to connect the SSD to your computer's USB port, effectively turning it into an external USB drive.
Case 2: If your laptop's hard drive experiences a major failure and Windows is unable to boot, you can take steps to recover your files and get your computer up and running with a new solid-state drive (SSD).
Cloning a hard drive to a solid-state drive (SSD) via USB is a convenient and efficient method for transferring data, especially when the source hard drive contains the operating system. This approach eliminates the need to transfer data to a transit media first and then to the target, making it a more straightforward process.
Now, check the following contents to make preparations for hard disk upgrade.
Preparations for cloning hard drive to SSD via USB
Except for USB adapter, you need to check or prepare some others things. If your computer is a desktop, things will be much easier. If your computer is a laptop, please think it over seriously.
1. Get secure access to internal hard drive. The hard disk clone will lose its meaning if you cannot disassemble the internal hard drive and replace it with SSD. If you are not sure, you can consult with laptop manual or contact with computer manulfacturer for support.
2. Choose a right SSD for replacement. Most laptops have 2.5-inch drive with 7or 9.5mm thickness, and different interfces, such as, SATA, NVMe. Just confirm your laptop manual and then purchase a right SSD.
3. Before making any changes to your laptop's SSD, it's essential to create a disk backup for disaster recovery. This will ensure that you can restore your system to its original state in case something goes wrong during the upgrade process.
More powerful SSD cloning software
To clone HDD to SSD using USB adapter, SSD cloning software is needed. If you're looking for a reliable and user-friendly disk cloning software, Qiling Disk Master Professional is an excellent choice. This software is designed to make the cloning process simple and easy to understand, even for novice users.
- Clone the entire hard drive or only selected partitions as per your needs.
- Clone large HDD to smaller SSD with its intelligent clone. This software is very flexible and will only clone the used space of hard drive if you don't tick "Sector by sector clone". This is a big headache for many users, because only a few disk cloning software can make this.
- Clone all sectors whether used or not via "Sector by sector clone". This feature can make an exact copy of an entire disk without any omission, but you need to make sure the destination disk is larger than or equal to source disk.
- Accelerate the target SSD with "SSD Alignment" while cloning hard drive to SSD or cloning SSD to larger SSD. This feature once again enhance the reading and writing speed of SSDs as well as extend SSD's lifespan.
- User-friendly GUI. An intuitive interface can help you clone disk easily and quickly without extra skill required.
To try it out, you can download Qiling Disk Master Professional here and follow the guide below to clone HDD to external SSD, clone SSD to external drive, etc.
How to clone HDD to SSD over USB (simple steps)
To clone HDD to SSD over USB adapter with the SSD cloning software - Qiling Disk Master, follow the steps below.
Step 1. Connect SSD via SSD-to-USB adapter and make sure it can be detected on your computer.
Step 2. Launch Qiling Disk Master, and select "Disk Clone" under the "Tools" tab.
Step 3. Select your HDD as source disk, then click "Next".
Step 4. Select SSD as destination disk, then click "Next" to continue.
Step 5. Once you've selected the clone mode and started the cloning process, you'll be taken to a new window where you can preview the operation result. This is where you can make any final adjustments before completing the operation.
More useful features you can enjoy in this software:
• Edit Partitions: When cloning a disk to a larger destination disk, the resulting disk may have unused space at the end, making it seem like the disk space is not fully utilized. This is because the cloned disk inherits the same partition size as the source disk, leaving some unallocated space at the end.
• Clone GPT system disk to MBR: Some cloning software may have limitations when it comes to cloning disks with different partition styles. However, Qiling Disk Master is capable of overcoming these limitations, allowing you to clone disks with varying partition styles.
• System Clone: Qiling Disk Master offers a feature that allows you to clone only the operating system (OS) in Windows 11/10/8/7. This feature is particularly useful when you need to clone your OS without cloning the entire disk. Clone GPT system disk to MBR: Some cloning software may have limitations when it comes to cloning disks with different partition styles. However, Qiling Disk Master is capable of overcoming these limitations, allowing you to clone disks with varying partition styles.
• System Clone: Qiling Disk Master offers a feature that allows you to clone only the operating system (OS) in Windows 11/10/8/7. This feature is particularly useful when you need to clone your OS without cloning the entire disk.
Qiling Disk Master offers a feature that allows you to clone a disk to another disk, including cloning an internal hard drive to an external SSD or vice versa. This feature is particularly useful when you need to upgrade or replace your storage devices.
Qiling Disk Master is a powerful and user-friendly software that offers a range of features for disk cloning. Not only can you clone a hard drive to an external SSD or vice versa, but you can also clone a M.2 SSD to another M.2 SSD. Additionally, this software can be used as a USB bootable cloning software to clone a bootable USB drive.
Alternative way to clone hard drive to SSD via USB
Except for SSD clonig software, Qiling Disk Master is also a powerful backup and restore software, which can be a great alternative to clone HDD to SSD via USB.
But this way need two steps, first create a disk backup (or system backup) and then restore it to SSD. Please remember that backup only works after restoration. To prevent a sudden boot failure, you may create bootable disk in advance, so you can restore/clone HDD to SSD via bootable USB.
For details, please refer to image Windows 10 to SSD.
Conclusion
As you can see, Qiling Disk Master Professional can help you clone HDD to SSD via USB effortlessly. And it also supports cloning HDD to Samsung SSD, replace hard drive in ASUS laptop, clone hard drive in Windows 10, etc.
By the way, it's also an excellent backup and restore tool, which can acheive the same effect as clone feature. With it, you can backup entire hard drive, selected partitions, and selected files. Just give it a try and it will become your best assistant in helping you protect your PC data.
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