How to Mirror a Hard Drive to SSD without Losing Data [2 Ways]
Why mirror a hard drive in Windows?
Before you figure out how to mirror a hard drive, it is necessary to learn what mirror is. Mirroring is a technique to allow a system to automatically maintain multiple copies of data so that in the event of a disk hardware failure a system can continue to process or quickly recover data.
From the definition of mirroring a hard drive, you can learn that to mirror a hard drive mostly is to keep copies of the hard drive so that your hands won’t be tied when the hard drive fails. It is better to keep hard drive copies in different devices like in another hard drive, SSD and external hard drive. Mirroring a hard drive to external hard drive is as same as backing up PC to external hard drive mostly.
Also, nowadays, people regard mirroring a hard drive as cloning a hard drive which is a different operation to hard drive backup. Anyway, clone a hard drive can achieve the goal of protecting data all the same. Then, learn how to mirror hard drive in Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, etc becomes important and urgent.
How to mirror hard drive with professional software in Windows
You can create a mirror image of the hard drive with the help of Windows internal tool, Backup and Restore, File History, if you just want to create backup image for the hard drive.
Nevertheless, using Windows snap-in tool in fact is a roundabout mirroring solution, especially using File History. You need to backup one hard drive twice, one for files and the other for system programs. Chances are that the mirrored images cannot be restored later. You might need the alternative to File History if it fails you.
Another solution for how to mirror hard drive to another is using professional software. With Qiling Disk Master Professional, you’ll learn how to clone a hard drive and how to backup a hard drive in intuitive user interface. It allows you to not only mirror hard drive to SSD, external drive, or another hard drive, but also clone large hard drive to smaller drive as long as all data on the source can fit the smaller one.
Follow next part to learn how to mirror hard drive to SSD in Windows 7 with two ways.
How to clone a hard drive to smaller SSD quickly in Windows 7
Step 1. Install a smaller SSD to your computer. To mirror laptop hard drive to another, you need to connect the SSD via USB-to-SATA cable. Make sure it can be detected by your Windows.
Step 2. Install Qiling Disk Master Professional by clicking the download button below and run it. Then click “Clone” > “Disk Clone”.
Step 3. Choose computer hard drive as the source.
Step 4. Choose the smaller SSD as the destination.
Step 5. It is suggested to tick the option “SSD Alignment” to improve SSD performance as well as prolong SSD lifespan. Then, click “Proceed”.
Tips:
- The option “Sector by sector clone” is available for clone hard drive to larger or same capacity disk.
- To mirror hard drive on Windows Server 2012, please try Qiling Disk Master Server edition.
How to mirror hard drive to external drive in Windows
This method will take create backup image for hard drive for example.
Step 1. Connect external drive to your computer and make sure it is formatted so that you can use it. Open Qiling Disk Master Professional, and click Backup and then Disk Backup.
Step 2. Click Disks and then select the hard drive you want to mirror from in the pop up window.
Step 3. Select a partition on external drive as the destination path.
Step 4. Now it’s time to set custom configurations, compress level, encryption etc in Options; daily, weekly, monthly backup mode in Schedule; and disk space management in Scheme. Click Proceed.
Tip: Depending on the size of your files and the write speed of your hard drive, the mirroring process may take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours.
Summary
In conclusion, Qiling Disk Master is a really good solution to the problem of how to mirror a hard drive in Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 7, or another Windows OS. Apart from mirroring a hard drive, this handy software will help clone a single partition like system drive to SSD, for example, you can clone boot drive to SSD using Qiling Disk Master. It also can be used to clone hard drive with bad sectors in Windows. You can create a bootable USB in Utilities tab just in case your system breaks down unexpectedly.
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