Acronis True Image Clone HDD to SSD - How to Guides

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Quick Navigation:

• Why use Acronis True Image to clone HDD to SSD?
• How to use Acronis True Image 2019 to clone to SSD
• Best alternative to Acronis True Image - Qiling Disk Master
• Safely Clone HDD to SSD with Qiling Disk Master in Simple Steps
• Summary

Why use Acronis True Image to clone HDD to SSD?

It is a good idea to clone hard drive to an SSD, whether you want to upgrade to a larger drive or get a better performance. Since Windows doesn’t offer any built-in tools for disk clone, users can only use some third-party programs like Acronis True Image.

Acronis True Image is an integrated application that enables you to clone basic drives (both MBR and GPT) to other drives, even if the target drive is of a different capacity. For Acronis True Image 2017 or earlier, the cloning should be done from Acronis bootable media.

However, since Acronis True Image 2018, you can clone directly without bootable media. In addition to the disk clone feature, this program also provides users with disk backup, partition backup, and disk restore, etc.  And its latest version is Acronis True Image 2021.

How to use Acronis True Image 2019 to clone to SSD

Here you can learn how to clone HDD to SSD using Acronis True Image 2019 step by step. Please download and install this software on your computer. Then, you need to create an account and activate this software.

Step 1. Connect the SSD to your computer. Make sure it can be detected. Launch this program to click Tools and Clone Disk subsequently.

Step 2. Choose whether to use Automatic (recommended) or Manual transfer mode. Then click Next.

💖 Automatic: the partitions will be proportionally resized to fit your target drive.

💖 Manual: change the disk partition layout as you wish.

Step 3. Select the drive that you want to clone. Then click Next.

Step 4. Select the SSD as the destination drive and then click Next. You will receive a prompt, saying all the data on the destination disk will be deleted, confirm it and click OK.

Step 5. Click Proceed to have Acronis clone drive.

Wait for the process to be completed. Then this program will inform you of the next steps to take.

⭐Tips:
✍This program cannot be used to clone dynamic disks.
✍Note that the cloned drive will not have a letter within Windows. Once you boot a new device from this drive, a letter will be assigned automatically.
✍Ensure that the target drive has enough capacity to fit the contents of the source drive when using the Acronis True Image clone to a smaller SSD.

Although you can clone HDD to SSD with Acronis True Image, you may meet many issues during the operation, such as  Acronis True Image will not clone, Acronis True Image cannot find hard drive, Acronis clone disk operation failed, and so on. If you want a reliable and flexible tool to clone your hard drive to an SSD, you’d better turn to an Acronis True Image alternative.

Best alternative to Acronis True Image - Qiling Disk Master

 Similar to Acronis True Image, Qiling Disk Master Professional is an excellent hard drive cloning software for Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP. But you don't need to create an account for activation and it offers more useful features to help you clone HDD to SSD effortlessly. 

Note the clone feature in this free trial version can only be demonstrated, to clone HDD and SSD and boot from it, please upgrade pro trial version.

Safely Clone HDD to SSD with Qiling Disk Master in Simple Steps

Before you clone:

• You’d better backup files to external hard drive in advance if you have stored some important files on the SSD. Because the disk cloning process will overwrite the target drive.
• Connect SSD to your computer via SATA-to-USB cable and power cable. Please make sure it can be detected.
• The professional version only applies to Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP. For server users, try Qiling Disk Master Server.

Step 1. Launch the disk cloning software - Qiling Disk Master. Select Clone from the left pane and then click Disk Clone.

Step 2. Select the drive that you wish to clone (here is Disk 0). Then click Next.

Step 3. Select the SSD as the destination drive (Disk 2). Then click Next.

Step 4. In the Operation Summary window, check SSD Alignment to accelerate the reading and writing speed of the SSD. Then click Proceed to clone HDD to SSD with Qiling Disk Master.

Also, you can use Sector by sector clone to keep the old partition layout or Edit Partitions to adjust the partition size on the destination disk. And the later one is more practical, since it resolves two potential issues during the cloning process. 

#1: The cloned drive not show full capacity.

By default, all the cloning software makes an exact copy of source disk unless you change the partition size while cloning. To prevent this from the beginning, try the following 3 options in Edit partitions. 

👉 Copy without resizing partitions: It will not resize the partition size.

👉 Add unused space to all partitions: It will reallocate the unallocated space to each partition of the target disk, appropriate for the disk size.

👉 Manually adjust partition size: It allows you to extend unallocated space to any partition on the destination disk you want. 

#2: The cloned drive not bootable after cloning.

One of the biggest reason is the destination and source disk has different partition style and you don't convert them to the same before cloning. In this situation, you can simply check Convert the destination disk from MBR to GPT or vice versa, depending on the disk partition styles of them. 

Both MBR and GPT are two different disk types for data storage. And you can check its disk properties in Disk Management. The overall steps are below:

• Press Win + R to open the Run window. Then, type diskmgmt.msc and hit OK to open disk management.
• Then, right-click the disk you want to clone and select Properties in the pop-up window.
• In the Properties window, select the Volume tab and confirm the partition style. It can be MBR (Master Boot Record) or GPT (GUID Partition Table).

• Similarly, check the disk partition tyle of the destination disk. If it is still MBR, you can directly clone hard drive to SSD. If not, you need to convert disk type with its Edit Partitions feature.

⭐Tips:
✍ After cloning, the source drive will not be wiped out. You can keep it as a backup or reformat the hard drive for other purposes.
✍ To get the best performance from the cloned SSD, it's suggested to clone Windows 10 to NVMe SSD, regardless of disk brand. 

Tips on how do I know if the cloned SSD is bootable: 

To confirm if the cloned SSD is bootable, please directly boot from it.  You have two ways in the following.

Way 1: Restart your computer and press a certain key (F2, F10, F12, DEL or ESC Key, etc.) to enter BIOS, Then change the boot order inside the BIOS and boot from the cloned SSD.

Way 2 (For laptop or desktop that only one hard drive slot): Shut down your computer and remove the battery, use screwdrivers to replace old hard drive (HDD) with the cloned SSD, then boot the computer up.

Summary

In this article, you have learned how to use Acronis True Image to clone to SSD as well as the best alternative software - Qiling Disk Master Professional. It has simple operation steps and comprehensive features, such as Disk Clone, SSD Alignment, Sector by sector clone, etc, making it easy to clone HDD to SSD in Windows 7, 8, 10, 11, etc. 

Qiling Disk Master is not only disk cloning software but also a powerful Windows backup and restore software, which allows you to backup disk,  operating system, and partitions to a safe location, restore to dissimilar hardware computer, command line utility to clone/backup/restore, delete old backup images, etc. 

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